Twitter - Written by Twitter Twat, June 7, 2009

Twitter Introduces Verified Accounts

The recent Twitter V’s some Baseball dude battle has seen the introduction of Twitter Verified Accounts. This was bound to happen, and Twitter’s judgement-to-date has been pretty good. So I really hope they remember ….

1. That some “fake accounts” are actually in good humour and welcomed by the real namesake
2. Being a “public official, public agency, famous artist, athlete, and other well known individual”, does not entitle that person to their name on Twitter:  they SHOULD NOT have precedent over “everyday people” who have exactly the same name. For example: there’s no doubt more than 1 Steve Jobs on the planet. So if Everyday Steve Jobs has a Twitter account, and is NOT trying to impersinate Apple Steve Jobs, there is no issue.
3. Verifying a Real v’s Fake account needs much more consideration than checking the web address linked in the user profile. I’m not sure that’s good advice by Twitter, on several fronts.

I was surprised and sceptical when reading yesterday’s news reporting Twitter had settled the lawsuit. The report was wrong. It seems Mashable’s news (and several other sources) was as fake as the account they were reporting on.