Elon Musk's social media site X has given a fake account mimicking President Myriam Spiteri Debono verification status. 

The account, called @MyriamDebono, promoted a cryptocurrency platform and was only created this month but managed to be verified with a grey tick before being suspended on Wednesday. 

The grey checkmark is reserved for “official government" accounts such as for heads of states, according to the platform. X details a process for applying for the grey checkmark that includes uploading identification documents. 

Meanwhile the genuine account of the president, @president_mt has no verification status. 

The fake profile has 50,000 followers.

The fake profile’s initial posts show it retweeting content from dignitaries, politicians and journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea.

But just days later, the profile suddenly changed tack, posting Greek-language content from the Cypriot president’s office and Cyprus deputy minister Irene Piki, amongst others.

Pausing briefly to retweet a post from British MP Nigel Farage, the page underwent a third metamorphosis, lifting Myriam Spiteri Debono’s name and photos, along with links to the President’s official website.

The page continued to retweet political content, including tweets from EP President Roberta Metsola and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, interspersing them with bizarre announcements of a “Malta National Crypto Coin on Solana” and plans to launch Malta’s “national crypto”.

Solana is a cryptocurrency based on a blockchain platform of the same name, launched in 2020.

It had 50,000 followers, according to its profile. 

Grey checkmark

Under the guidance of Musk, the platform, formerly known as Twitter, saw a change in how it verified accounts. 

The blue checkmark, which was the traditional mark of verification, became a marker of a paid subscriber and a gold mark was reserved for paying organisation and businesses. 

But the grey mark denotes an official government account and cannot be purchased.

X’s guidelines show that applying for a grey checkmark requires users to verify their identity through a government-issued ID or by linking their account to a government email address.

But X has frequently come in for criticism for its failure to adequately address the spread malicious and fake content, even becoming the first platform to be formally charged by the European Commission for infringing its newly-introduced Digital Services Act.

Changes to several social media platforms in recent years, including both X and Facebook, have made it increasingly difficult for official pages to obtain verification.

Attempts to contact X for comment were unsuccessful at the time of publication.

Profile is not genuine: President’s office

When contacted, the President’s office confirmed that the profile was not genuine, saying that it is “aware of several pages and profiles impersonating H.E. President Myriam Spiteri Debono on Facebook, X and Instagram”.

“These pages are not only using the President’s name and photos, but also using AI techniques to produce deepfake video content falsely attributing on-camera footage and comments to Her Excellency.”

Spiteri Debono has featured in a spate of videos shared across social media in recent days which use audio deepfakes to mimic the voices of prominent public figures and dupe people into fraudulent investments.

A spokesperson for the President said that her office “disassociates itself from any such content aimed at attracting people to financial investments, mainly crypto, that are fake and may lead to people falling victim to scams”.

Urging people to remain vigilant, the spokesperson said that the President’s only official pages are www.facebook.com/MyriamSpiteriDebono, www.instagram.com/president_mt and x.com/president_mt.  

The Times of Malta fact-checking service forms part of the Mediterranean Digital Media Observatory (MedDMO) and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), an independent observatory with hubs across all 27 EU member states that is funded by the EU’s Digital Europe programme. Fact-checks are based on our code of principles. 

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