It is about the leaders of the Hezbollah party, which is recognized as a terrorist organization in the United States, the son of Muammar Gaddafi and accounts associated with the Houthis.

According to a report by the non-profit organization Tech Transparency Project (TTP), about 30 accounts with “blue ticks” allegedly belonging to authorized persons have been identified so far. Here are a few of them:

• Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah’s account — with over 93,000 subscribers and marked as “verified” (meaning the owner has provided X government ID).
• Iran’s state news agency Press TV (one of the two accounts with “golden checks” — the other being Russia’s Tinkoff Bank). The cost of such a premium “tick” reaches $1,000 per month.
• Al-Saadi Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was also signed to Elon Musk.
• Ansarallah is a Yemeni group, better known as the Houthis.

TTP notes that most of the accounts were verified after Elon Musk bought Twitter and offered paid subscriptions (only ten paid to keep the “legacy” checkmarks they had previously received).

X did not comment on the report, but appears to have removed almost all of the aforementioned “blue checks” (the “gold” ones still appear on the Press TV and Tinkoff Bank pages), and has blocked several accounts (including a page linked to with the Iran-backed Harakat al-Nujab group).

“X has a robust and secure approach to our monetization functions, adhering to legal obligations as well as independent verification. Several of the accounts listed in the Technology Transparency Report are not directly on the sanctions lists, while some others that are subject to sanctions may have visible checkmarks on their accounts without receiving any services,” X later noted in response to The Verge asked.

US companies are prohibited from conducting economic transactions with people and organizations on the sanctions list — a similar prohibition is actually contained in X’s policy on selling subscriptions. The TTP notes that it is possible, though unlikely, that the social network gave the blue badges to terrorist groups for free or that they were tricked into receiving them.

Prior to Musk’s acquisition, the social network (also known as Twitter) was embroiled in legal scandals for allegedly supporting terrorists. The family of a victim of an Islamic State attack has accused Twitter of failing to ban accounts linked to the group, a case now before the Supreme Court.

Another question is whether the social network took money (let it be only about $8 per month) for subscription from people with whom it is forbidden to conduct financial transactions.

After Musk bought and took over Twitter in October 2022, the number of anti-Semitic posts on the platform more than doubled, according to another study last year. The billionaire himself denied accusations of anti-Semitism, tried to sue the Anti-Defamation League and called himself a Jew by profession.

Meanwhile, due to the presence of conflicting messages with the social network, a dozen large companies (in particular, Apple and Disney) stopped advertising cooperation – Musk publicly sent them to hell in response.

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