X begins rolling out labels for parody accounts

When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he implemented many changes, like removing the "Twitter for [Platform]" label and more. One of the most controversial changes, controversial in the sense that people still complain about it to this day, was taking the popular blue checkmark and putting it behind a paywall.

Before that, the checkmark was reserved for accounts of public interest. But under Emperor Musk, it became a perk tied to a Premium subscription.

If you were on Twitter when the change was implemented, you'll remember the absolute chaos that followed. Trolls, realizing they could now get a checkmark, launched parody accounts that caused massive confusion.

Some of these parody accounts were banned for impersonation, prompting Musk to introduce a new rule: parody accounts must include the word "parody" in both their account name and bio.

Parody accounts have always been common on Twitter, but they were never officially recognized. There wasn’t a label or toggle in settings to mark an account as a parody until now. X Safety (@Safety) recently announced that profile labels for parody accounts are rolling out.

According to a post from @Safety, these labels will appear on both posts and profiles to "clearly demonstrate the source of the content you’re seeing."

Thanks to reverse engineers back in November, we saw that the parody account badge featured a robot emoji with the text "Parody account" beside it.

However, users quickly pointed out that the robot emoji felt more fitting for bots than parody accounts. In the final rollout, the design was updated, and parody accounts now feature a performing arts emoji instead.