As Twitter continues to flail about in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover as CEO, Trevor Noah is having a lot of fun watching it all happen. According to the “Daily Show” host, “it’s the best Twitter’s ever been.”
During his show on Thursday night, Noah made sure to set aside time to poke fun at Twitter’s troubles. This week, those troubles have specifically been thanks to the rollout of Twitter Blue’s paid verification service. For just $8/month, subscribers could pay to get a blue checkmark next to their name, thus “verifying” them. But, as pretty much everyone expected, that function got abused.
In the two days of the feature being available — as of Friday morning, it had been rescinded — users flooded Twitter with fake accounts impersonating real people and brands. Among those impersonated were Rudy Giuliani, LeBron James and several major brands, including Eli Lilly and even Musk-owned Tesla.
“Oh no!” Noah said sarcastically. “Because anyone can buy verification, they’re now impersonating famous people — who could’ve seen this coming? What? Everyone? Wow! Where were you guys $44 billion ago?”
It’s worth noting that many of the fake accounts actually adhered to Musk’s own rules, labeling their account a “parody” within the bio section, or even in the cover photo. So, on Thursday night, Musk amended that requirement even further.
“Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include ‘parody’ in their name, not just in bio,” he tweeted. “To be more precise, accounts doing parody impersonations. Basically, tricking people is not ok.”
Speaking more seriously — but only just — Noah put the state of things pretty succinctly. But he admitted that he’s not torn up about it.
“Look, I’m gonna be honest. And I’m gonna be blunt here; Elon Musk is running Twitter into the ground,” Noah said. “And it’s the best Twitter’s ever been! Are you kidding me? Fake LeBron leaving L.A., Mario flipping the bird, George Bush telling us how he really feels — thing is an absolute trainwreck and I’m here for it!”
You can watch the full segment from “The Daily Show” in the video above.
