Twitter has recently suffered a rash of celebrity impostors, creating phony accounts and claiming to be actors, rappers, reality TV personalities and even cable news reporters. To combat the problem of phony celebrity accounts, Twitter has announced that they will begin offering verified Twitter accounts later this year.
With so many celebrities on Twitter, the temptation is obviously great for wannabes or bored pranksters to impersonate their favorite celebrity. And because Twitter has previously had a very lax account creation procedure, it’s been pretty easy up till now for almost anyone to open an account and claim to be Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney or even President Barack Obama.
But now that the popularity of Twitter has begun to take off in such a big way, the company is worried about security and credibility. After all, if Twitter followers are reading comments by someone they think is one of the Jonas Brothers, they’re bound to be mighty disappointed if they eventually find out it’s a 13 year-old fan from Malaysia actually doing the Twittering!
Twitter hopes that the new verified accounts will improve this credibility problem, though they admit that the verification process requires human attention, so only a small group of celebrities will be able to verify their accounts at first. Eventually though, the company hopes to expand this process to include businesses and other notable Twitterers.
The new verified accounts will feature an official seal in the upper right corner of the user’s Twitter page, letting followers know they have been checked out and they are who they say they are. However, Twitter representatives are quick to point out that accounts that do not feature the seal will not necessarily be impostors. They recommend that followers check out a celebrity’s official web site, and follow the link from there back to their actual Twitter account.
Twitter has come under fire recently because of several high profile celebrity account impostors. One in particular lead to a lawsuit — the case of Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. La Russa sued Twitter over a phony account which he claimed slandered his name, and accused him of driving while intoxicated and other inappropriate behavior.
Though the outcome of the case has yet to be decided, Twitter representatives (predictably) claim it is a frivolous lawsuit, and that the company’s terms of service prevent them from being held liable in such cases. By verifying celebrity accounts they hope to avoid any such confrontations in the future, while increasing the reliability of their service.