Social media site X tightens rules on parody, impersonation, fan accounts (2025)

Starting on Thursday, April 10, users of billionaire Elon Musk’s social media site X — formerly known as Twitter — will have to meet stricter standards if they engage in parody, impersonation or fan page activity.

In a post from the platform’s Safety account on Friday, X said the changes are meant to “improve transparency.”

Specifically citing “Parody, Commentary, and Fan (PCF)” accounts, X said that these users must put compliant keywords at the start of their profile names and cannot use identical profile images as the accounts they are attempting to depict.

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This means instead of putting words like “parody,” “fan,” and “fake” at the end of their account title, these words must be put at the front of the name, so as not to be potentially obscured.

“These changes are designed to help users better understand the unaffiliated nature of PCF accounts and reduce the risk of confusion or impersonation,” X said in its announcement. “We encourage all affected accounts to update their profiles before the enforcement date.”

The platform’s current authenticity policies, last updated in January, already forbid profiles from impersonating the identities of people, groups and organizations with the goal of deceiving others.

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Users are not required to use their real name in their profile, and X stated that PCF accounts are allowed for the purposes of discussion, satirization and sharing information.

The platform previously had a legacy blue check verification system designed to distinguish users of notoriety and official accounts from non-official and inauthentic ones.

However, starting in 2022, Musk scrapped this verification method in favor of a verification system in which blue checks were given to, or kept, for users who signed up for paid monthly subscriptions.

Many governmental, brand and news organization accounts were separately given gray and gold verification marks instead of blue ones to continue to verify their legitimacy.

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Musk himself has been the subject of impersonations in the past by accounts that altered their names to his, setting off the policy of impersonators needing to include “parody” in their account names.

In January, X said it would start labeling parody accounts and posts to “clearly distinguish” them.