X still has a Verified Bot problem. And this time, they’re coming for TechCrunch writers. Recently, TechCrunch staff writers have noticed there are more and more bots have created imposter accounts on the platform. Now that all it takes to get a blue check is the willingness to pay a monthly subscription, imposter accounts have been popping up all over X and getting them taken down is harder than you’d think.

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It probably doesn’t come as too big of a surprise that cowboy boots aren’t typically sold online. So where is the modern cowboy supposed to shop? This week we’re talking to a founder who carved out a DTC market for western wear.  Paul Hedrick, the founder of Tecovas () ,  joins Dom and Becca to discuss the marketing strategy they came up with to change the perception of shopping for cowboy boots online and how the company has expanded to brick and mortar stores. 

In this conversation they cover:

• How social media played a big role in the early days of tecovas
• The challenges of modernizing such an old-school industry
• Fundraising when DTC was almost a dirty word.

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Finally, there’s a social network where AI and humans can coexist. Former Snap engineer Vu Tran has launched his latest venture, Butterflies, which allows people to create an AI persona that will post like a real person and even interact with other AIs. Butterflies only just launched to the public out of beta after five months, so we’ll see who this app is geared towards.

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