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Elon Musk announced he was changing Twitter’s name to X In the last week of July, reflecting the billionaire’s life-long obsession with the letter, which is a very normal thing for an adult man to have. To celebrate, CEO Linda Yaccarino, whom Musk appointed in May, changed her username from @lindayaccs to @lindayaX. An enterprising troll snatched up @lindayaccs, impersonating Yaccarino with a handle one letter off from her old one.
@lindayaccs now belongs to someone who has at least a passable sense of humor. The account looks much like Yaccarino’s old account, complete with her photo, except it has the words “parody” spelled out in several prominent places. The profile also links to xvideos.com.
The newly minted Yaccarino account is hard at work posting easy layup jokes, such as “Hello fellow Reptilians!” and “Let’s revert back to Twitter! Who’s with me?”
That means the account isn’t breaking any of X’s (fka Twitter’s) policies. The company says parody accounts are allowed on X, and can use elements of another person’s identity as long as the words “parody,” “fake,” “fan,” or “commentary” are included in the username and the bio. However, Musk has demonstrated a willingness to break or change his company’s rules in order to do whatever he wants, so @lindayaccs will likely be short-lived. X and the person running the parody account did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Yaccarino parody account lists xvideos.com in the link field, a reference to a porn site Gizmodo has obviously never heard of until now, and a nod at the fact that calling the company “X” creates a number of uncomfortable issues with official accounts and products that now need new names, such as the recently disabled @twittervideos account.
Typically, social media companies have robust security departments that help you avoid obvious mistakes that create problems like someone impersonating your CEO. Unfortunately, Musk laid most of those people off shortly after buying the company.
So far, Twitter’s big name change has gone anything but smoothly. The word “Twitter” still appears all over the app and the website. The company also sparked controversy by stealing the @x account from a long-time user without permission or compensation, according to reports.
Last week, San Francisco police stopped the company from removing the iconic Twitter logo from the side of the building. Musk reportedly didn’t have a permit for the work, and didn’t take any safety precautions to protect pedestrians on the street below. Workers were ordered to immediately stop removing the Twitter sign, leaving just the letters “er” on the building.
Undeterred, the company had an enormous letter “X” affixed to the top of its headquarters, which was held up on the edge of the roof with sandbags according to photos of the scene. The new logo had blinding strobe lights, which flashed at nearby residential and office buildings late into the night. Days later, city inspectors showed up and forced the company to take the X down.
Correction, August 1, 6:30 p.m.: A previous version of this story stated that a user had taken over Yaccarino’s old username and that Twitter had not locked it down. That is not the case. The Twitter user was tweeting from @lindayaccs, one letter off from Yaccarino’s actual old handle, @lindayacc, which is no longer operating. We regret the error.
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