Despite the fact that musician Tommy Page passed away in 2017, his verified Twitter account (@Tommypage) is merrily tweeting away in 2021. Although one can never entirely rule out supernatural involvement, we think there's a more mundane explanation. . .
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
Tommy Page's verified account (@Tommypage, permanent ID 185366038) has had its display name changed from "Tommy Page" to "xən". Most of its followers and all of its old tweets have been purged, likely by a new owner following an account takeover.
We scrolled through @Tommypage's timeline and followers/followees, and noticed a few other blue-check verified accounts that appear to have been repurposed, including water polo player Judith Forca (@JudithForca, ID 504430504) and the band Vanquish (@Vanquishgirls, ID 194666247).
By exploring the networks of the accounts we'd found so far, we tracked down 23 verified accounts that appear to have been hijacked. The original owners are a mix of musicians, athletes, journalists, and TV/radio shows/personalities.
An interesting outlier among the hijacked blue-check accounts is @WeAreMAG (ID 846368933712199680). Originally a pro-Trump account created early in Trump's presidency, it has now been repurposed to amplify another of the hijacked blue-check accounts, @Vanquishgirls.
Update: some of the hijacked blue-check accounts have lost their blue check marks, and apparently not everyone is happy with this outcome.
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