Phony Twitter-ers

Everybody has Twitter. Twitter is a real-time information social network that allows users to connect with each other and receive the latest information by reading easy 140 character status updates (Twitter.com 2010). Twitter, which was launched in 2007, has had a rapid growth of 50 million tweets sent a day as of current (Beaumont 2010). The Huffington Post (2010) recently released a Twitter’s user statistics; Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users, there are estimates of 300 000 new users every day and 180 million unique visits to the Twitter site each day.

Users ‘tweet’ short status updates about what they are currently doing and with Twitter, you are able to connect with people around the world just by reading ‘tweets’. However, Twitter has one ultimate flaw; imposters. It is so easy for a random individual to create an account and pretend to be someone else. For example, anyone can just sign up for an account on Twitter.com due to its poor verification system (Owens 2009). Twitter has had many imposters posing as celebrities that its credibility is being questioned, Owens (2009 adds. 

In a recent case, the holy Dalai Lama had an imposter faking a Twitter account, claiming it to be real (Owens 2009). By the time the Dalai Lama’s personnel had contacted Twitter to inform him of the impersonation, it had already been too late (Owens 2009). Owens (2009) adds that the fake Twitter account already had 20 000 followers and the media had already reported and spread the news that the holiness himself had joined the popular social networking site. Twitter then implemented new security measures to counter this problem by introducing the new ‘Verified Account’ scheme (Leyden 2009). Twitter launched the scheme after the company was sued by celebrity Tony La Russa who had an imposter posting up fake tweets under his name, along with many other cases of celebrity imposters using Twitter (Leyden 2009). The scheme provides a seal branding a celebrity’s Twitter profile as authentic and legit.

The seal next to the account name verifies it as legitimate and real. (Source : Taylor Swift's Twitter Account on Twitter.com)

Identity theft is deemed as the new millennium crime (Hoar 2001). Hoar (2001) states that it can be done easily, anonymously, with a variety of reasons and the consequences to the victim can be horrible. In this context, imposters can taint a celebrity’s image by posting up inappropriate tweets and status updates. For example, popular teen sensation Miley Cyrus had her Twitter account hacked in 2009, with the imposter posting up rude comments as her status updates (Constantin 2009).

Miley Cyrus' hacked Twitter account showing rude status updates. (Source : allieiswired.com)

The new Internet age has made impersonating easy, and Twitter’s credibility is degrading if the company does not take action to solve this uprising problem. It is a problem for both the victim and neighbouring others, as we tend to believe everything we see or hear on the net (Davis cited by Owens 2009). 

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Reference List


Beaumont, C 2010, 'Twitter users send 50 million tweets per day', The Telegraph, 23 February, viewed 11 November 2010 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7297541/Twitter-users-send-50-million-tweets-per-day.html>

Constatin, L 2009, 'Miley Cyrus' Twitter Account Hacked', Softpedia, 18 February, viewed 11 November 2010 <http://news.softpedia.com/news/Miley-Cyrus-039-Twitter-Account-Hacked-104817.shtml>

Hoar, S 2001, 'Identify Theft: The Crime of the New Millennium', USA Bulletin, vol. 49, no. 2 viewed 11 November 2010 <http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/usamarch2001_3.htm>

Leyden, J 2009, 'Twitter fights celebrity imposters with Verified Account scheme', The Register, 8 June, viewed 11 November 2010 <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/08/trusted_twitter/>

Owens, S 2009, 'How Celebrity Imposters Hurt Twitter's Credibility', Media Shift, 20 February viewed 11 November 2010 <http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/02/how-celebrity-imposters-hurt-twitters-credibility051.html>

The Huffington Post 2010, 'Twitter User Statistics Revealed', 30 April viewed 11 November 2010 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/twitter-user-statistics-r_n_537992.html>