Banishing the impostors: Twitter’s Verified Accounts
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Trying to find Britney Spears on Twitter? Before June 11th, 2009 you’d have had 5 pages of search results to sift through. Looking for Ashton Kutcher? 11 pages. Oprah? Don’t even go there. So will the real celebrity please stand up?
Twitter is aiming to combat the increasing problem of impersonators with its new Verified Accounts feature, currently in beta. Intended for well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, tech execs, agencies and other prominent Twitter users prone to ‘identity confusion’, this feature will certify the authentic account with a Verified Account badge (seen below).
The phenomenon of Twitter impersonation has existed as long as the service itself, but often in a more obvious form. Witness the plethora of @fake____ accounts like @fakebarackobama and @fakejohnmccain.
However, more covert mimicry has occurred. In February, PC World published a humorous article about some of the more creative impersonations. In tech-savvy Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, now Mayor, ruffled feathers when his campaign jokingly impersonated opponent Peter Ladner on Twitter. And Twitter’s introduction of verified accounts comes on the heels of a legal situation in which St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa attempted to sue the company after someone set up a fake account in his name.
A friend of ours, Vancouver-based media maven Lorraine Murphy, better known by her moniker ‘Raincoaster’, has dealt with an impersonator named ‘Fake Raincoaster’. She found the obvious spoof on her persona flattering and amusing at first but over time, it became increasingly more irritating as questions over the impostor’s identity continued. So does Murphy believe Twitter’s Verified Accounts feature is an appropriate response to Twitter impersonators? Not really. “If there were reports of fraud related to identity spoofing on Twitter I’d find this to be a more pressing issue,” says Murphy, “I really just think this is Twitter attempting to monetize paranoia. Which might just make them very, very rich.”
It is not yet known whether Twitter will charge for the service, or if it will even offer it to the general public. At the moment, verified accounts are by invite only.
