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Austin Police Twitter Account Turns Out to Be Faked

by Tim Stevens on March 29, 2009 at 02:39 PM

Austin Police Twitter Account Turns Out to be Faked
Earlier this month, Austin, Texas was the scene of one of the biggest independent music festivals in the world. Called South By Southwest (or SXSW), the festival finds lovers of all things indie flocking to the area for a week of rockin' and rollin' -- to some locals' chagrin. Police, in particular, have their hands full during the festival, so it wasn't really a surprise when a Twitter account showed up, purporting to be by the Austin Police Department and saying things like, "warming up my radar gun for SXSWi." As it turns out, though, it was fake, and the account was ultimately disabled by Twitter administrators.

The account (AustinPD) was suspended after someone from the real police department complained. There are plenty of fake Twitter accounts out there, most being perpetrated by celebrity impersonators. While celebs generally ignore the fakers, it seems the police weren't willing to be quite so forgiving. With no way to really verify the identify of a Twitterer (or of any other social networker, for that matter) this is a problem that's sure to get worse before it gets better. So, be careful who you follow, Twitterers. [From: CNET News]



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Tags: austin, microblogging, social networking, SocialNetworking, south by southwest, SouthBySouthwest, sxsw, twitter, twittering

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