SI'm sure you've come across a post on X from a famous person that made you wonder whether it was actually written by the person in question or not. Surprisingly, although it sometimes seems impossible, those posts telegram data make you doubt that the celebrity wrote them are, other times, parody accounts that impersonate them with the idea of making jokes or pranks for their followers.
We're rolling out profile labels for parody accounts to clearly distinguish these types of accounts and their content on our platform. We designed these labels to increase transparency and to ensure that users are not deceived into thinking such accounts belong to the entity…
— Safety (@Safety) January 10, 2025
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These labels will appear on both the profiles of these accounts and their posts, although the date when this decision will become mandatory is still unknown.
What are parody accounts?
Parody accounts are social media profiles that impersonate famous people, organizations, or well-known media outlets in order to create posts that imitate them and gain interactions and engagement from their followers. Elon Musk himself has one where they post things like, "Should X buy TikTok?"
Should X buy TikTok?
— Elon Musk (Parody) (@ElonMuskAOC) January 7, 2025
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And while many of the tweets from this account could be something Elon Musk would say on any given day, that's not the case.
These types of accounts have caused misunderstandings on numerous occasions, leading to the spread of fake news. For example, an Indian television network used a post from a parody account as the headline of a news report.