Impostors have Web site all atwitter
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What do Gov. Ed Rendell, rapper Ice-T and televangelist Robert Schuller have in common?
In all likelihood, not a whole lot -- except that they've each been the victim of identity theft, social networking style.
Last week, a Twitter impostor started posting under the username EdRendell, including on his page a picture of the governor in front of a Budweiser dart board and a link to the official state Web site.
The posts -- known in Twitter parlance as "tweets" -- range from vanilla politician-speak ("Let's go Phillies!" and "What a beautiful day in Pennsylvania") to the more crude ("I wish [Philadelphia mayor] Michael Nutter would stop calling me so late when he is drinking").
For now, the governor -- or at least his staff -- is taking the posts in stride. The office has not contacted Twitter to ask that the impostor be removed, said spokesman Chuck Ardo, noting that because Mr. Rendell "does not tweet," he was not sure whether he had personally seen the site.
"At this point, nothing that has been posted has been offensive or sufficiently important for us to intervene," he said. "It has been good natured thus far and we would hope that it would continue that way."
Twitter impostors have existed nearly as long as Twitter itself, which isn't all that long. The site was launched publicly in August 2006, the brainchild of co-founder Jack Dorsey, who wanted a way to keep up with his friends.
Other public figures who have acquired impostors have taken the unwelcome impersonations much more seriously than Mr. Rendell.
Eric Ripert, a well-known New York City chef, complained publicly that his impostor was tweeting that -- horrors -- he was microwaving M&Ms. Twitter eventually suspended the account of the impostor.
Ice-T discovered his Twitter impostor after he tried to sign up for an account and discovered that not only had someone already registered under his name, but that their posts were "real corny and whack."
Twitter impersonation has become so pervasive in large part because it's so easy, said Simon Owens of the PBS program "MediaShift," who has researched the Twitter impostor phenomenon.
Twitter makes no attempt to verify an initial username, he said, and a celebrity's followers can spread incredibly quickly once they are registered. A fake Dalai Lama tweeter attracted almost 20,000 followers in just two days, he said, before Twitter suspended the account.
The fact that Twitter is increasingly being embraced by celebrities, politicians and journalists as both a soapbox opportunity and a public relations tool only confuses the situation.
"Every time I see someone famous, until I see a verification from an outside source, I usually assume it's not real," said Mr. Owens.
When Shaquille O'Neal started a Twitter account, he actually called some of his followers to convince them that the account was real. Other celebrities, such as Hugh Jackman and Britney Spears, have real accounts but don't write all the posts themselves.
Mr. Jackman's "ghost tweeter" staff member was outed after a tweet allegedly from the Australian actor referred to the Sydney Opera House as the "Opera Center."
There are also tweeters out there who admit that they are faking it, usually for the purpose of mocking a real celebrity.
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl seems to have attracted one such impostor.
Though Mr. Ravenstahl has a real Twitter site, with posts such as "Looking forward to canvassing with my volunteers this weekend," there's also a FakeLuke Ravenstahl page, with tweets such as "Franco's son is running for my office?!?! Maybe he can bring his Dad to one of the debates! I'd love to get his autograph."
Impostors haven't been nearly as big a problem on Facebook, said Mr. Owens, in part because pages on that social networking site are generally less public. Given the millions of Twitter users, and a staff comprised of only a few dozen, it's unlikely Twitter will make much progress against impersonators, he said.
"It's just one of those kind of pitfalls of social media."
First Published April 30, 2009 12:00 am
