Mark Ruffalo has taken to Twitter to advise Elon Musk to leave the social media platform as it’s “destroying” his credibility.
The 51-year-old billionaire completed his acquisition of the social media company on October 27 after months of legal negotiations.
During Musk’s takeover of the platform, there have been company layoffs, and the introduction of the controversial new subscription plan, Twitter Blue, in which users can purchase the “blue tick” verification badge.
In a series of tweets over the weekend, the 54-year-old actor wrote to the Tesla founder after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that the platform had “bricked” her profile after she criticized Musk’s plans to introduce a payment model for verification.
Read Ruffalo’s tweets below:
“Elon. Please – for the love of decency – get off Twitter, hand the keys over to someone who does this as an actual job, and get on with running Tesla and SpaceX. You are destroying your credibility. It’s just not a good look,” the Hulk star wrote.
Musk then responded to the Marvel star, writing: “Hot Take: Not everything AOC says is 100 percent accurate,” to which Ruffalo replied “maybe so,” adding that the recent changes to the app make it more difficult to determine whether or not anything is “accurate”.
“That’s why having robust filters for dis/misinformation and credible verified users has been a popular feature for people & advertisers alike,” he said.
“We need those safeguards to make sure it’s accurate information, or the app loses credibility, as do you. And people leave,” Ruffalo added.
For the Twitter Blue verification plan, anyone paying $8 a month would be able to buy a verification badge.
However, the new plan has raised concerns regarding the verification of the individual purchasing the badge, and whether somebody could just buy the badge and pretend to be somebody else.
Last week, True Blood actor Rob Kazinsky raised concerns over how someone might be able to impersonate him – as he says someone had previously – to interact with minors through the platform.
“Years ago, before verified accounts were a thing, back when I was on Eastenders, I was contacted multiple times by parents of children who had been ‘conversing’ with me online. 11-15 year old children that had been talking with a fake me,” he wrote.
He said that one of the children “went missing” and explained that he “didn’t have social media at the time” therefore he “didn’t understand it”.
Kazinsky shared that he felt “powerless to stop people using my name and face to scam or groom people,” which is why verification was important in protecting people.
To highlight the potential issues that would arise from the SpaceX founder’s forthcoming plans, several celebrities, such as Kathy Griffins, changed their Twitter name and profile picture to his.
However, on Sunday (November 6), Musk suspended the accounts and issued a statement, writing: “Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.”
“Previously, we issued a warning before the suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning,” he explained in another tweet.
Musk then added in a third tweet that “any name change” will cause a “temporary loss” of the verified blue checkmark.