Mark Ruffalo has pleaded with Elon Musk to change his approach to running Twitter.
Musk completed his acquisition of the social media company on 27 October. The time since has seen upheaval at the company with layoffs, and the controversial proposal of a new subscription plan, in which users can pay for the “blue tick” verification badge.
In a series of tweets over the weekend, Ruffalo wrote directly to Musk following an accusation by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that Twitter had “bricked” her profile after she condemned Musk’s plans to introduce a payment model for verification.
The Marvel star wrote: “Elon. Please – for the love of decency – get off Twitter, hand the keys over to someone who does this as an actual job, and get on with running Tesla and SpaceX.
“You are destroying your credibility. It’s just not a good look.”
Musk responded to Rufallo, writing: “Not everything AOC says is 100 per cent accurate”.
Ruffalo replied “maybe so”, adding that the recent changes to Twitter make it harder to discern whether or not anything is “accurate”.
“That’s why having robust filters for dis/misinformation & credible verified users has been a popular feature for people & advertisers alike,” he said. “We need those safeguards to make sure it’s accurate information, or the app loses credibility, as do you. And people leave.”
As per Musk’s Twitter Blue verification plan, anyone willing to pay $8 (£7) a month will be able to purchase a verification badge without the need to verify that their identity matches the one attached to their account.
Last week, The Gray Man star Rob Kazinsky warned against the move, stating that someone might be able to impersonate the actor – as he says has been the case previously – to interact with minors through the platform. Kazinsky, however, was not specific about which platform this was connected to.
In order to highlight the potential problems that would arise from Musk’s plans, a number of celebrities changed their Twitter handles to Musk’s name.
On Sunday (6 November), Musk suspended the accounts and issued a statement on Twitter, reading: “Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.”
“Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning,” he said. “Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.”
