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| Facebook verified a fan page as Elon Musk |
Facebook verified a fan page with 153,000 fans as the official page of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who broke the platform's rules.
However, the page cannot be accessed later. It is not clear if the platform removed it or if the owner made it unavailable.
The site did not claim to be Elon Musk's official website and explained in the "About" section that he was a fan. This page contains 10 posts, the oldest from October 21.
One of the posts is a picture of Musk, and the other is meant to notify the Page that their profile picture has been updated with a picture of Musk. The other images appear to be reposts of recent releases.
This page did not start as an Elon Musk fan page. The Page Transparency tab shows a small overview of the site's history, who ran it and whether it shows ads - this means that the site was created on July 28, 2019 and represents Kizito Gavin, unlike footballer Gavin Kizito.
The page was renamed six times in 2021, and its name was most recently changed to Elon Musk twice on October 17. The transparency section of the home page also indicates that the person who runs the home page is Egyptian. Musk lives in Texas.
It's also worth noting that the page's URL is officially abbreviated - https://www.facebook.com/ElonMuskoffici - to make it look unofficial.
Twitter isn't the only platform with verification issues
It is not known when this page will be revised. Facebook's verification rules state that the company has verified that the homepage or account is the true presence of the public figure or brand it represents.
To earn a Facebook verification badge, you will need to fill out a form that asks applicants to share official identification in the form of a driver's license, passport, identity card, tax documents, or a recent utility bill.
Verification is a challenge for large social media platforms. Twitter also has this problem. It suspended its verification program in 2017 and restarted it earlier this year.
The reboot was a bumpy ride, with the company admitting in July that it had mistakenly verified a small number of fake accounts.