- By Ashish Singh
- Thu, 15 Feb 2024 06:29 PM (IST)
- Source:IANS
Elon Musk's microblogging platform X is purportedly providing its paid subscription service to accounts for two leaders of a US-designated terrorist group as well as several other government-approved groups, according to a Tech Transparency Project (TTP) report.
More than a dozen X accounts for US-sanctioned businesses were found in the investigation to have a blue checkmark, indicating that access to these accounts requires a premium subscription. In addition to the checkmarks, X provides premium accounts with additional benefits including increased visibility and the capacity to upload longer texts and videos.
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The report claims that 28 confirmed accounts are associated with people and organisations that the US government has designated as posing a threat to national security. Two Hezbollah leaders, accounts connected to the Houthis in Yemen, and official media accounts from Iran and Russia are all included in this group.
After X started charging for the procedure in April of last year, 18 of these accounts were verified. According to the report, the fact that X charges a monthly or yearly price for premium service implies that X is using these accounts for financial transactions, which may be against US sanctions.
As the report made clear, sanctioned users are not allowed to pay for premium services per X's own standards. In their responses, some of the detected accounts included ads. "Some checkmark accounts associated with US-sanctioned entities had ads running in the replies to their posts, raising the possibility that they could get a cut of that ad revenue," the report stated.
An X official did not respond to questions from TTP researchers regarding the accounts, but he did say he would check into them. "Hours after this report was published, X removed all of the checkmarks mentioned in the report and suspended one account for the Iranian-sponsored militia Harakat al-Nujaba," according to the report.
Some accounts that lost their blue check marks were those associated with Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. X did, however, post a message from the business's @Safety account, which stated that the teams had looked at the TTP report and "will take action if necessary".
A few of the accounts found in the Tech Transparency Report do not appear directly on lists of sanctioned users, and some other accounts might have tick marks next to their names even if they are not getting services that are sanctioned. "We are always committed to maintaining a safe, secure, and compliant platform," the company stated.
Accounts that have paid for the Premium or Premium+ service tier on X are indicated with blue check marks. The monthly fee for the Premium tier is $8, or $84 annually, and the monthly fee for Premium+ is $16, or $168 annually. An account that has paid X to be a "Verified Organisation'' is indicated with a gold checkmark.