Terrorists continue to pay for check marks on X, finds report

San Francisco: More than a year after researchers first warned X that it was potentially violating US sanctions by accepting payments for subscription accounts from terrorist organizations and other groups barred from doing business in the country, Elon Musk's social platform continues to accept such payments, according to a new report.

The report, by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit focused on accountability for large technology companies, said X had continued to take payments from accounts that appeared to be affiliated with Hezbollah leaders, Houthi officials, and militia leaders in Syria and Iraq.

The subscriptions, which cost $8 a month, offer users a blue check mark -- once limited to notable users like celebrities -- and come with perks. Those include more prominent placement in X's algorithm, the ability to edit posts and the option to share longer videos.

After the Tech Transparency Project reported last year that X had granted paid blue check marks to 28 accounts belonging to entities subject to U.S. sanctions, the social media company stripped badges from some of the accounts and suspended others. But within a month, several of those accounts bought badges again -- and have displayed them ever since.

More than 200 accounts linked to terrorist groups and other sanctioned groups have bought blue check marks, according to the Tech Transparency Project.

"They rely on the premium services for the amplification of long propaganda posts and extended videos," said Katie Paul, the director of the organization. "They are not just subscribing for the blue check notoriety, they are subscribing for the premium services."

Musk, who has taken on a role in the Trump administration as a special adviser to the president, recently criticized the Treasury Department, claiming the agency did not have "basic controls" in place to track payments and prevent them from going to terrorist groups. During a February appearance with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Musk said controls to prevent payments to terrorist groups and fraudsters were "in place at any company."

X and the Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment.

After Musk bought X in 2022, he made vast changes, including reinstating hundreds of banned accounts and laying off about 80% of the staff. He also got rid of the old verification system, which relied on employees to verify prominent users' identities, and replaced it with a subscription.

X's policies forbid terrorist groups to buy blue check marks, and it is unclear how the organizations and people highlighted in the report skirted those rules to pay for their premium status. Because X no longer verifies the identities of users before granting check marks, it is also possible that some of the accounts discovered by the Tech Transparency Project belong to impersonators.

Still, some of those accounts were labeled "ID verified," which requires sharing a selfie and a form of identification.

Subhi Tufayli, a founder of Hezbollah who was the group's first secretary-general, appears to have an "ID verified" account with more than 40,700 followers. Tufayli has been on the Treasury Department's sanctions list since 1995. The account, which was verified in October 2023, frequently shares 30-minute videos of his sermons.

An account with a blue check for the Houthi rebel group of Yemen once thrived on X, but the company removed the badge last year after the Tech Transparency Project's first report.

An account under the name of Hussain al-Ezzi, identified by the Tech Transparency Project as a deputy foreign minister for the Houthis, asked Musk to allow the group to be verified again.

"I stand in solidarity with the Yemeni brothers who had the blue mark removed from their accounts, and I call on Elon Musk to reinstate it, or at least reinstate subscriptions," the account said in a March 2024 post.

In the months that followed, at least five senior Houthi officials appeared to pay for blue check marks on X, the latest Tech Transparency Project report found. The accounts have more than 820,000 followers.

Some of the flagged accounts used X to raise funds, either by using X's tipping and subscription features to solicit payments or by directing users to send money to a cryptocurrency wallet.

"There is clear evidence of these groups profiting and fundraising through X," Paul said. "They are sanctioned for a reason, and the fact that somebody who has such influence and power in the federal government is at the same time profiting from these designated terrorist groups and individuals is extremely concerning."