Latest Twitter trend - fake identities
Digg’s Kevin Rose just wrote on Twitter he’s considering creating his own religion. Or has he?
Over at twitter.com/fakekevinrose you can follow the adventures of Fake Kevin Rose. And if you’re more into Jason Calacanis, there’s a fake Jason on Twitter, too (he’s on Fake Kevin Rose friends’ list)
It’s mostly good natured fun, but it raises a serious question. People will rarely go to the trouble of creating a fake blog on someone, mostly because it can be very easily debunked and because it takes at least some time and effort. On Twitter, however, it’s trivial to create a new account - all you need is a name and 2 minutes of your time.
The above two examples are obviously fakes, because the authors have added the word “fake” to the name. However, this needn’t always be the case. Anyone can easily create fake accounts for any celebrity that isn’t already on Twitter. Furthermore, this can be used not only for fun, but with malicious intent.
Should Twitter be doing something to prevent this, and what can they do? Except for standard policing and reacting to complaints, embracing OpenID seems like a way to avoid this - something that has already been brought as an idea. In any case, with its skyrocketing popularity, Twitter will face many additional problems like this which they most probably never planned for.
*Update: As Tanner from TechBlot points out, there’s also a fake Steve Jobs, Borat, and Bill Clinton out there.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
[…] Franticindustries reported yesterday on fake Twitter identities. There are numerous fake identities on Twitter including Kevin Rose, Jason Calacanis, Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton and Borat but it is so easy to pretend to be them thanks to the limitations of Twitter. […]
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