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Sarah Palin Impersonated on Twitter, Site Institutes 'Verified' Status

by Kendra Cunningham on July 10, 2009 at 05:22 PM



Sarah Palin may be receiving a surge of new friends on Facebook, but she's not getting quite the same warm welcome over on Twitter, where dozens of fake Sarah Palins tweet away. "Unfortunately fake 'Gov Sarah Palin' twitter sites r doing their thing today, So sorry if u recv false info @ fake site," Palin tweeted in response to the plethora of Palin impersonators.

According to Bloomberg, accounts like "hockeymom64" and "ExGovSarahPalin" are tweeting false information, but Palin is hardly the only one battling against a sea of fake accounts. Many famous Twitterers have fallen victim to fakesters and account hackers. This is truly troublesome, particularly considering -- like it or not -- the significant, underground news source that Twitter has become. How can the truth prevail?

"Twitter does need to strengthen its notion of identity as it plays a greater role in the public conversation, if it wants to have impact," Gartner Inc. research analyst Ray Valdes told Bloomberg.

Fortunately, Twitter has introduced a new feature that "verifies" those oft-impersonated celebrities -- but only accounts, not the tweets themselves. Sarah Palin gets a cute little check-mark on her Twitter page, but there's nothing she can do to rid the site of impostors. So before you praise or damn the next thing she says, make sure it really comes from her mouth...er, fingers. [From: Bloomberg]

Tags: celebrity, hack, hoax, microblogging, palin, politics, sarah palin, SarahPalin, top, twitter

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