The BBC has removed a story about Will Ferrell apologising to Sunderland football fans, after being fooled by a parody Twitter account with a paid-for blue tick.
Ferrell, who has been touring Britain attending football matches over the past month, recorded a video before Sunderland played his team, Queens Park Rangers, in which he mocked “the tears of sorrow” his opponents were going to experience.
After the match – which Sunderland won 3-0 – a Twitter account named “Will Ferrell” tweeted a screenshot of a headline about Sunderland fans hitting back, and said “Haway man, sorry”.
Readers who tapped on the account (@OfficialWilllF, with three “l”s) would see it had a blue “verified” tick. But only if they tapped on the tick itself would they be told that the account “is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue”, Twitter’s paid-for subscription. The account’s bio reads “Comedian, actor, impressionist (parody)” and has fewer than 40,000 followers.
“In a BBC News Online article, we incorrectly stated QPR fan and actor Will Ferrell apologised for mocking Sunderland fans,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “A quote was taken from a verified Twitter account, but it was not made by the actor. We have removed the article in its entirety since it was based wholly on the apology.”
Twitter’s move to replace its “legacy” verification, which required accounts to prove they were who they said they were, with paid-for Twitter Blue, has led to a rash of impersonation incidents.
On the weekend the service was launched, a number of accounts paid for the new verification tick after changing their names to major companies or advertisers. One prankster registered and verified the handle of pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly before tweeting that insulin would be free – an announcement that had an immediate impact on the company’s stock price.
Elon Musk, the site’s owner and chief executive, was also the target of a number of impersonation incidents, until the verification programme was briefly suspended. When it was resumed, Musk said it had safeguards against impersonation, but in January the Washington Post successfully registered and verified a fake account claiming to be the US senator Ed Markey.
Despite the issues at Twitter, Meta announced on Monday it would be following the company’s lead and offering paid-for verification for users of Facebook and Instagram. The service will differ from Twitter Blue in some ways, however, with a higher cost – starting at $11.99 – and a requirement that users submit proof of identity before they are awarded the verified label.
