One of the highly-touted benefits of the Twitter Blue paid verification feature is an alleged reduction in spam and inauthentic activity. While the underlying assumption that adding the requirement for a phone number and a monthly payment create friction to certain types of inauthentic activity is accurate (spinning up large numbers of “verified” spam accounts requires deep pockets), creating smaller numbers of inauthentic accounts with blue checkmarks remains relatively easy, especially since the Twitter Blue verification feature currently does not require proof of identity. Additionally, the policy of giving algorithmic priority to replies from Twitter Blue accounts gives spammers whose replies would previously have been buried the power to push them to the top of a given tweet’s comment section instead.some examples of reply spam from Twitter Blue verified accountsCryptocurrency reply spam similar to that shown in the above image has been an issue on Twitter (and other platforms) for several years. Prior to the introduction of the Twitter Blue verification feature, this spam has generally come from large swarms of batch-created and hijacked accounts (frequently automated), with the occasional hacked celebrity account thrown in for good measure. Likely due to the repetitive nature of the replies, Twitter’s spam detection systems did a decent (albeit far from perfect) job of relegating these replies to the bottom of the comments section.only $8 a month and you can be just like @CryptoArmy100xTwitter Blue changes the situation. On April 25th, 2023, Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that “[Twitter Blue] verified accounts are now…Inauthentic activity and Twitter Blue verification