Valve and Apple trolled by verified Twitter impersonators as brands continue to exit app

11th November 2022

Valve and Apple are among a raft of brands being impersonated and trolled by newly verified Twitter users.

Since Elon Musk’s acquisition, users of the app can now pay £6.85 ($8) a month for the privilege of having ‘blue tick’ next to their Twitter usernames.

People and pranksters alike are now able to create profiles that at first glance seem to be authentic and are capitalising on the change by tweeting out false pieces of information. Some tweets have been lucky enough to go viral before being deleted several hours later.

Valve is one of the many brands to become the butt of the joke as impersonator, ‘@valvesotfware,’ announced under false pretences that the ‘Neon Prime’ trademark the brand officiated in October was created as a sequel to a disk-throwing game released in 2000 called Richochet.

One helpful Twitter user pointed out that the announcement was fake and that it was “created with a purchased Twitter blue checkmark”.

this announcement is fake, created with purchased twitter blue checkmark, real account @valvesoftware pic.twitter.com/D3B3D8guYq
— ‎Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) November 9, 2022

Yesterday, Marketing Beat reported that a fake Nintendo Twitter account titled ‘@nIntendoofus’ had trolled Twitter by acquiring a verified blue tick and then tweeting an image of Mario sticking his middle finger up.

The tweet appeared at first to be from the gaming brand itself due to the brand icon used and the name ‘Nintendo of America’ appearing next to the Twitter handle. However, Twitter users soon discovered that the account was false and that the tweet was in fact a hoax.

Videographer, director and editor ‘@themattprov’ wrote: “Every single advertiser is about to drop Twitter in the next 48 hours. Person creates fake Nintendo Twitter account, pays $8, gets verified immediately and within 2 hours, all their sh**posts go viral. Real Nintendo account gets spammed with complaints.”

Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier also replied to the out of character Mario image by writing: “Can’t imagine why all the advertisers are pulling out of Twitter lmao”.

Can't imagine why all the advertisers are pulling out of Twitter lmao pic.twitter.com/pg55WXkxhS
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) November 9, 2022

Another Apple TV impersonator craftily copied the real ‘@AppleTVPlus’ Twitter handle by replacing the lowercase ‘l’ with an uppercase ‘i’ (‘@AppleTVPIus’).

Elon Musk himself has reacted to the situation with laughing face and money emojis.

However, it is clear to see that many brands are not finding the situation to be humorous, with Chipotle, United Airlines, General Mills, Pfizer, Audi, Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors all removing ads from the social media app, according to Forbes.