Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is outraged over a parody account of her that has gone viral, blaming Twitter CEO Elon Musk for interacting with the account and allowing it to go viral.
According to the radical leftist congresswoman, Musk responding to a tweet from the parody account contributed to it going viral and “gaining speed.”
In a tweet, Ocasio-Cortez warned her followers about the parody account — a move that most likely also contributed to the account gaining popularity.
“FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility. It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread,” she wrote.
“I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility.
It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread.
I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 30, 2023
The account that prompted the Democrat congresswoman’s outrage has the handle “@AOCpress” and is clearly labeled “parody” in the name, in accordance with the Twitter terms of service. The full name on the account is “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (parody).”
As of Tuesday evening, the parody account had roughly 181k followers, while Ocasio-Cortez’s official account has more than 13.4 million followers. After Musk commented on a tweet from the parody account and Ocasio-Cortez began speaking out about the issue, the parody account skyrocketed to more than 300k followers.
The tweet that Musk responded to was a joke about him, stating: “This might be the wine talking, but I’ve got a crush on @elonmusk.”
The Twitter CEO simply responded to the parody account’s tweet with a fire emoji.
🔥
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2023
Alongside all of the AOC parody account’s other joking tweets, the account also responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet calling them out — mocking her for trying to censor parody.
“I can’t believe someone would do that to us,” the parody responded.
“After brainstorming with my staff – I’m going to push Congress to make it illegal to joke, laugh, or make fun of me,” the parody account later added.
“I’m calling on @elonmusk to permanently suspend the @AOCpress parody account. Making fun of someone as important as me should never be allowed in a free society,” the parody account wrote in another tweet.
This comes after Musk had previously changed Twitter’s rules to allow parody accounts to be verified with blue checkmarks as long as the account is clearly labeled as a parody, which prompted outrage among the elites because Twitter’s previous owners had doled out blue checkmarks as a sign of status.
Under previous management, conservatives could lose their blue checkmark simply for posting something that offended the left — while Musk has allowed anyone to be verified so long as they pay $8 and meet the requirements. As a result, many prominent accounts have lost their verification because they refuse to pay, though politicians and other notable accounts have been given different color checkmarks for free to ensure that there is no impersonation. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, has a gray checkmark.
