Social networking has caught up with netizens around the world like a raging fire. Twitter is particularly hot, with its ‘tweets’ that enable its users to send and read others’ updates. With its total focus on micro-blogging, the portal has become one of the most favoured social networking sites.
Alongside its rising popularity, the site is also bringing to light identity crisis issues. Not so long ago, the American rapper, record producer, author and singer Kayne West was heard accusing the portal for having let someone misuse his identity. Dalai Lama surprised the world by tweeting under the name ‘ohhdl‘; only, it turned out to be the prank of an impersonator, leading to the cancellation of the account. There was another instance—the celebrity impersonation of Dr Robert H. Schuller, the famed televangelist.
And now, recently, the case of Tony La Russa. Manager of St Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball franchise, La Russa is now suing Twitter, claiming that someone is pretending to be him on the site. Tony claims that he had warned Twitter of this fake account and asked them to suspend it, but they took no action. The other side of the story says that Tony, characteristic of him as it is, went ahead and sued the portal without any notice. Whatever the truth is, the damage has been done: to both the individual’s identity and to the portal’s credibility.
This poses a question to the everyday web user. How secure can they be of their identity? How can they defend themselves from their identity being hijacked? We all may not be celebrities, but each individual is unique—and in this day and age, no one can shut themselves from the cyber world.
Fake Twitter users pose a conundrum for the portal. Social networking now assumes a prominent role in the lives of people and there ought to be a concrete solution for such hijackings, which are nothing but identity theft. Such thefts could cost your life much more than a million bucks stolen from your account!
Fake accounts—especially so if it’s in the name of a celebrity (not to mention the thousands of followers)—and impersonators are turning out to be a major threat to twitter users. It can tarnish the image of a person, even that of a common man.
Most of you must have heard the story of how a would-be Cisco employee messed up his image through an innocent-sounding tweet. For better or for worse, this is the way of the web today; anyone could be posing as you, and tweeting away uncalled for comments about your friends, your family, your job, boss, coworkers, or company.
There’s a limit to which people can expect social networking sites to make sure you’re the real person…what with millions of people registering! Where’s Twitter’s ability in screening and figuring out who is who, really? Where’s your security?
We hope that answer can be found here with us! Crederity is working on solutions that will set free the socially savvy netizens of today to tweet away with authority. If you’re Crederity approved and let your friends and Twitter followers know to look out for your verified seal, your followers can rest assured knowing that you are in fact who you claim to be! With a dedicated team entirely focused on such fraud issues as identity fraud and impersonation, Crederity is striving to help minimize, and eventually prevent, this identity crisis that Twitter faces today. Please let us know if you have any ideas on how we can further assist you.