Twitter to Crack Down on Fakers

[Logan Westbrook]

Twitter to Crack Down on Fakers

Fake Britneys and Dubyas beware, Twitter is coming for you.

Remember the guy who pretended to be Cliff Bleszinski [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88360-Cliffy-B-Poser-Stopped-on-Twitter] on Twitter? Perhaps then you also remember that Epic shot him down, forcing him to make it very clear that he was not the real Cliffy B.

That kind of thing is about to get a lot more common after Twitter was sued by Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, over an imposter who used La Russa's name to make satirical remarks about the Cardinals. Ewan McGregor is also said to be considering legal action after a fake account using his name posted about his personal life to an audience of 20,000 followers

Impersonations of real people are not allowed on Twitter except in cases of parody, which must be clearly marked as such, but Twitter does not require any proof of identity, making it almost impossible to prevent. But all that is going to change, as the site tests a system to verify celebrity accounts as genuine.

"We're working to establish authenticity, starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion," a Twitter spokesman said.

Damn, there goes my dream of being a Bobby Kotick impersonator...

Source: The Telegraph [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/6211014/Twitter-cracks-down-on-fake-accounts-amid-legal-threats.html]


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[Katherine Kerensky]

I wonder if Gordon Brown has Twitter... hmmmm...
Oh well, I wonder if he counts as a celebrity? *Evil Thoughts*

 

[Amnestic]

Damn, there goes my dream of being a Bobby Kotick impersonator...

What would you do? It's not as if his reputation could be ruined any further unless you twitter'd about him saving kittens and helping old ladies across the street.

 

[DrunkWithPower]

Oh, La Russa, the Championship money not enough for you? Yahtzee should sue Facebook for all the fakes on it.

 

[Insanum]

Here here! Glad to hear it!

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

Speaking of fakes, when i myspace gonna fix their problems(I don't use it that much, but its annoying)

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, I have mixed opinions.

Let me be totally frank, I do not use Twitter, I do not like Twitter. On the other hand I think half the appeal of the system is anonimity and I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of preventing this kind of impersonation simply because of what it says about unmasking people over what should be a service without any accountability if your going to use it at all.

Frankly if your a celebrity and don't like this, then don't use Twitter, and tell everyone you don't do it, or at least not in a form where your celebrity is obvious.

In part I say this because I am tired of "twit hype" and the fact that it's used as a giant advertising/self promotion tool. Half the time I'm guessing that "Celebrities" talking about what they are doing are actually getting paid to draw attention to specific things. Truthfully the impersonators were the only thing keeping this from being what amounts to a glorified advertising tool.

Heck, I'm waiting for some company to develop a satellite that somehow beams information onto the inside of your eyelids so you can "consume information" just by blinking. Guaranteed celebs will have their own "blinki" channels and they will get paid big bucks to casually broadcast doing something at a client's business or whatever.

The only good part when this happens is that hackers will find a way to accidently subscribe people to some of the shock pages in Encyclopedia dramatica, leading to legions of uptight people afraid to close their eyes.

 

[Pendragon9]

Damn, there goes my dream of being a Bobby Kotick impersonator...

Took the words right out of my mouth. And I even had an evil speech for him too.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I never really understood why people are so obsessed with sound-nibbles anyway.

(Not even a sound-bite)

 

[Sir Ollie]

Damn I was going to set up a Optimus Prime account.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I'm quite pleased with this news. Now I don't need to sit here pondering wether or not they're legit. Not always so easy to tell.

 

[Fenring]

Damn, there goes my dream of being a Bobby Kotick impersonator...

Someone beat you to it. http://twitter.com/bkotick

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Fake Britneys and Dubyas beware, Twitter are iscoming for you.

That's my grammar twitch right there. Drives me batty.

 

[Xvito]

Fake Britneys and Dubyas beware, Twitter are iscoming for you.

That's my grammar twitch right there. Drives me batty.

Maybe he meant "Twitter" as in "the group of people who run Twitter"...?

 

[goatzilla8463]

Another thing they should do is kill all the fricking porn-bots. They always follow me and it's annoying.

 

[megapenguinx]

Another thing they should do is kill all the fricking porn-bots. They always follow me and it's annoying.

Porn bots and advertising bots.
Those guys may not do much, but I'd rather not have them following me.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Interesting, well off to delete 30 twitter accounts

[small]not really[/small]

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Fake Britneys and Dubyas beware, Twitter are iscoming for you.

That's my grammar twitch right there. Drives me batty.

Maybe he meant "Twitter" as in "the group of people who run Twitter"...?

still it should be is not are

i hate twitter with a passion, it's annoying. tho i guess there is some fun to be had being a fake celeb. i can see why they want to put a stop to it, you'd figure they would have had a way to verify the identity of celebs already

 

[Xvito]

Fake Britneys and Dubyas beware, Twitter are iscoming for you.

That's my grammar twitch right there. Drives me batty.

Maybe he meant "Twitter" as in "the group of people who run Twitter"...?

Still, it should be "is" not "are".

Maybe I meant "the group of people who run Twitter" as in "the people who run Twitter"...?

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

Yes because Twitter is very serious and loads of people over thirteen want to know when Britney Spears is taking a dump[/sarcasm]