Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Elon Musk on Tuesday of boosting a parody account imitating her and making false policy statements under her name.
“FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility,” the New York representative wrote. “I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the fake account had gained nearly 120,000 followers since it was created in 2018. The account only had 83,000 followers on Monday.
Musk engaged with a Sunday post from the fake account, which said it had a “crush” on the Twitter owner, tagging Musk’s account. Musk replied to the tweet on Monday with a fire emoji. The fake account’s original tweet has received over 25 million views and 60,000 likes as of Tuesday afternoon.
Government officials are in theory harder to impersonate, and the parody AOC account had several red flags to alert Musk, or whomever, that it does not speak for the real AOC. First, while the account used the same picture as the real AOC account, it clearly marked itself as a “parody” in parentheses on its profile.
Additionally, while any account that pays for a Twitter subscription, as per Musk’s new verification rules, is given a blue check mark, government officials and organizations are designated by a gray one, according to Twitter’s policies. AOC’s real account is correctly branded with a gray check mark, while the parody, which previously had a blue check mark, no longer had any mark as of Tuesday afternoon.
Several users pointed out that the fake account’s statements were clearly intended as a caricature of AOC’s policies. The account wrote on Sunday that “farming should be illegal.” On Monday, Republican Congressman and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz (verified by a gray check mark) responded to the fake AOC’s farming tweet without clarifying the account was a parody, although he followed up two minutes later with a disclaimer that the account was, in fact, fake.
While Twitter was home to parody accounts of public figures long before Musk was in charge, it’s become much easier for impersonators to create fake profiles that are harder for other users to verify since Musk overhauled the platform’s verification system. Prior to Musk’s tenure, Twitter assumed the responsibility of confirming notable accounts’ identities, including for celebrities and journalists, through a system of identity checks and verification methods. A verified account was accompanied by a blue check mark.
But in a bid to monetize subscriptions at a company that was reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy, Musk revamped the system last year, requiring a paid fee for verification that has led to a flood of fake accounts and misinformation. As Twitter prepared to erase legacy checkmarks in April, several celebrities including William Shatner and LeBron James pushed back and refused to pay for verification.
It isn’t the first run-in AOC has had on Twitter with Musk after a public spat in November. She accused the Twitter CEO of “descending into abuse of power” after he had suspended the accounts of several journalists he claimed were revealing private information about his whereabouts. AOC called on Musk to “take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism” and to try putting down his phone, to which he replied “You first lol.”
Neither AOC’s office nor the owner of the parody account immediately replied to Fortune’s request for comment. Twitter, which no longer has a press office, did not reply to Fortune’s request for comment.
