As Twitter’s future looks increasingly uncertain, prominent users are preparing alternatives, directing followers to Facebook and Instagram accounts, handing out their Mastodon addresses, and setting up servers on chat apps like Discord. With its community-focused approach, where servers encourage tight-knit groups to form and discuss issues related to the overall topic focus, Discord may seem like an oddity for the tight-knit world of government communications. However, the app has many users interested in finance, thanks to steady acceptance among day traders and cryptocurrency fans, two groups that the Treasury Department is eager to connect with. The result: a read-only Discord server where the only user allowed to post is someone named HMTreasurySocialAdmin1, who shares tweet-length news about the Treasury and the chancellor. But trolls will always find a way. Although posting is prohibited, emoji reactions are enabled, allowing any user to respond to a Treasury post with a single emoji, and new users are happily announced in a “welcome” channel. This means the Treasury server eagerly posts automated messages like, “Welcome, LOCK PRINCE ANDREW. We hope you brought pizza” and “Welcome Jeremy Corbyn. Say hello!”. The latter does not appear to be the former opposition leader’s true account. The latest official post from the Treasury has reactions like the middle finger emoji, the clown emoji and the eggplant emoji, which are usually used to indicate a penis. Less abusive emoji reactions include the trans rights flag, the EU flag and a pregnant woman emoji, protesting government policies in these areas. Others have accepted the fact that the letters are on the emoji list, and more than 100 people have apparently tuned in to try to write the chancellor’s name, ‘Hunt’, under the post. Unusually, however, each of them appears to have made the same typo, accidentally uttering an obscenity. While the Treasury Department still has a Twitter account, it wouldn’t be the first major organization to ditch the social network following Elon Musk’s acquisition. One of Musk’s first official actions as CEO of Twitter was to end the company’s old verification system and offer “verified” status to any user who paid £7 a month. This led to a wave of impersonations, first by Musk himself, and later by major advertisers and celebrities on the platform, such as Nintendo, Joe Biden and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. Alex Hern’s weekly dive into how technology is shaping our lives Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. A tweet from a fake verified account attributed to the latter claimed to deliver insulin and was live on the site for more than six hours as representatives tried to reach someone at Twitter, which has laid off half its staff in the past month. As a result of the chaos, the social network introduced, pulled, reintroduced, pulled and reintroduced a second layer of verification, marking some users as “official” with a gray checkmark under their name. The move came too late for several major advertisers, including GM, which have halted all spending on the site until “brand safety” issues are resolved. However, the company has secured a new advertiser: Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is launching a new ad campaign soon.
