New Delhi: The AI-generated image of an explosion at Pentagon that appeared on several verified Twitter accounts has once again put Twitter’s paid verification programme in question that allows anyone to pay $8 a month and get the verified Blue tick.
Several media outlets and millions of Twitter users took the fake verified Twitter account ‘Bloomberg Feed’ for a real Bloomberg-affiliated account, as it had a blue check, ANI reported.
Twitter suspended that account later but the damage was already done.
The fake tweet spooked some investors. The S&P 500 dropped sharply in the minutes after the image was amplified by well-followed accounts. It later recovered those losses, reports NBC News.
The image depicted a large plume of smoke next to a rectangular building with only a passing resemblance to the Pentagon.
Russian state-controlled news network RT also shared the image, according to screenshots that users captured before the tweet was deleted.
