How Celebrity Imposters Hurt Twitter's Credibility
The article talks about how imposters have come to flood Twitter accounts with many of them posing as celebrities. In particular, one case happened to relate to the Dalai Lama (Owens S, 2009). It was said that the Dalai lama had actually create a Twitter account and entered the Twitter world. But it was later found out a few days later that the Twitter account created by the Dalai Lama was actually created by an impersonator. An impersonator is someone who pretends to be someone else with aims to deceive (Jan C, 2009). Twitter only allows users to create parodies and fan accounts but not to impersonate someone else as it violates their policy (Jan C, 2009).
Celebrities like Shaquille O'Neal and big businessmen like Steve Jobs have also fallen to impersonators. Shaquille O'neal actually countered that account by creating his own account in order to diffuse the impersonator and clear the air. He eventually called one of his followers in order to prove that he was the real deal and not another impersonator (Owens S, 2009).
Due to the lack of staff present in Twitter, it is relatively impossible to keep track with the thousands of new applicants and most of the time they result to waiting for complaints that their account has been hacked or someone has been impersonated (Owens S, 2009). Twitter however encourages celebrities to come out and create accounts with Twitter in order to prove they're the real deal to fans and followers.
Journalists have also been fooled by impersonators especially in terms of the case with the Dalai Lama as many journalists have prepared their research of this topic and were ready to be presented to their editors only to find out a few days later that the Dalai Lama Twitter account created was fake (Owen S, 2009).
On another account, a student of Lake Washington High School was impersonated by someone from a rival high school. It was stated that the impersonator made racial comments to other Twitter users with the name of the student from Lake Washington High School. He is now suing the impersonator and is asking Twitter to release information about this impersonator in order to get to the bottom of the problem (Managan M, 2010).
Impersonations have indeed caused chaos and unhappy feelings with normal people all the way to celebrities and big names. It could also cause a persons name to be defamed and with celebrities, it may cost them more than a name but also their fan base and avid followers.
References
- Owens S, 2009, How Celebrity Imposters Hurt Twitters Credibility, online, viewed on June 16th 2010, available at http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/02/how-celebrity-imposters-hurt-twitters-credibility051.html
- Managan M, 2010, Racism and Twitter impersonations prompt lawsuit for Kirkland teen, online, viewed on June 16th 2010, available at http://www.seattlepi.com/sound/417973_sound89792712.html
- Jan C, 2009, Impersonation Policy, online, viewed on June 16th 2010, available at http://help.twitter.com/entries/18366-impersonation-policy
No comments:
Post a Comment