Twitter 'Jesus' purchases blue check verification following new Musk policy: 'Absurd'
The anonymous user behind @Jesus said he bought a blue check to prove how 'absurd' the new system is
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An anonymous Twitter user, who has been impersonating Jesus on the platform for 16 years, purchased a blue checkmark following Twitter CEO Elon Musk's now-suspended change to the platform's verification policy.
The user, who noted he made the satirical @Jesus account with nearly 900,000 followers in 2006 in an attempt to bring levity to the platform, said he obtained the blue check to illustrate "how absurd the new system of verification is," according to a recent interview with Business Insider.
"I've applied for verification before and been rejected, but when Elon Musk changed the verification rules and you could subscribe to Twitter Blue and buy a verified check, I knew it was finally my time," the user said. "It was immediate. I bought the Twitter Blue subscription, and when I finished confirming Apple Pay and reopened Twitter, I was verified."
Twitter launched the blue check verification system in 2009 and required high-profile accounts, such as celebrities and politicians, to prove their identity to prevent false impersonations.
Musk's overhaul of the process, which allowed users to purchase verification for $7.99 per month, has apparently since been suspended after "verified" users were pretending to be LeBron James demanding a trade, former President George W. Bush attacking Iraqis and Eli Lilly & Co. cutting insulin prices to zero, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Experts have raised grave concerns about upending the platform’s verification system that helped Twitter’s 238 million daily users determine whether the accounts they were getting information from were authentic.
Elon Musk’s Twitter account is displayed on the screen of an iPhone on April 26, 2022, in Paris. (Chesnot/Getty Images / Getty Images)
"Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation," Musk tweeted Monday. "Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals."
"In a way, I verified the Jesus account to show how absurd the new system of verification is," the user behind @Jesus said. "It's like, obviously, I'm not Jesus. He doesn't have a Twitter account, so why am I able to be verified? It doesn't make sense."
The user also said others on Twitter routinely send him both hate mail and earnest prayer requests, which he noted he is ill-equipped to answer.
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"The requests come from all around the world and in different languages. Sometimes, I'll send a message back that's encouraging or something, but I'm very aware of the fact that I'm not a trained psychologist and don't have the professional credentials to be able to handle this kind of thing," he said.
The anonymous Twitter user behind the now-verified parody @Jesus account claims to receive both death threats and earnest prayer requests in his inbox. (Getty Images)
Explaining how some people accuse him of blasphemy and send him messages that he is going to hell and that they are going to find him and kill him, the user believes his account is not blasphemous because it is obvious that he is not actually pretending to be Jesus.
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"But I want people to know that I'm just trying to joke around and have fun. This isn't Banksy-level performance art. I'm not making big statements about anything (except how easy it now is to get verified on Twitter)," he said.