Bill Keller – a columnist for New York Times, former The Times editor and one of the authorities on American policy making – recently launched a blitzkrieg against the White House through his Twitter account. He targeted their strategy-making in one of the most extroverted acts of criticizing the government in recent memory. He also defended the WikiLeaks, in a move that is set to set shockwaves through journalistic epicenters and in turn ensure that the U.S. government backlashes with vengeance… Or not!

For, you see, Keller didn’t actually do any of those things; it was all a part of a massive hoax – a hoax that is going spell disaster for Twitter and its credibility. And what’s worse, it wasn’t as if Keller’s account was hacked, it was something alarmingly worse and yet astoundingly simplistic: the Twitter account was spoofed; something you can conjure up in less than 240 seconds.

An Average Joe Can Spoof Twitter Accounts

If one endeavors to hack a particular account, PC or a cell phone, it would need a multitude of skills and arsenal like computer spy software or cell phone spy software. On the contrary, spoofing an account requires about as much skill as writing a nursery rhyme. All the miscreant needs to do is create an account that is only a letter or a character or two different from that of the real user, add their picture in and voila! Brace yourself to fool thousands…

Take for instance an imaginary Twitter account @zzzzdavidson; just by upper casing a few, or all, of the characters or adding a number at the end, or even by adding a ‘z’ in the middle, one can fool the Twitter users, and hoax an account. And the time it would take for one to do that would be equal to the time it takes to make an ordinary Twitter account. It’s really that simple; and if recent events are anything to go by, virally effective.

Keller Or KeIler?

In Bill Keller’s case, the hoax was summoned thanks to replacing a small ‘L’ from his original Twitter account – @nytkeller – and replacing it with a capital ‘I’, which in the font that is used by Twitter’s platforms look almost identical. So @nytkeller became @nytkeIler, with the display photo of the original account.

Of course, there is a plethora of parody accounts prevailing in the Twitter world and Twitter’s ‘blue badge’ authenticity tends to sift the veritable ones from the fake ones. But when tweets as shocking as the ones that attributed to Bill Keller are seen on Twitter, one can be forgiven for overlooking the badge – in spite of the fact that the ‘one’ here eventually added up to thousands in next to no time.

Twitter Hoaxes, Fake News & Heart Attacks

The fact that hoaxing Twitter accounts is so simple has meant that the rate of these hoaxes has escalated in the recent past. Fake twitter accounts report fake news, which in turn ensure that a multitude of people fall prey to the theatrics all too easily. Like for instance sports fans have recently heard news about NBA star Grant Hill’s retirement from ESPN’s Marc Stein; how James Harden was traded away by Oklahoma City Thunder as reported by Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski; and the worst of all how Michael Jordon had a heart attack, something that was reported by TNT’s David Aldridge – all these accounts were obviously fake.

And it wasn’t as if it was a harmless, ineffective joke. Harden actually believed that he’d been traded and there was a barrage of tweets from NBA players calling on their fans to pray for Jordon. One of the basic purposes of Twitter is to break the latest news. However, as things have turned out a lot of the news being broken is fake which is akin to a massive dagger in Twitter’s credibility claims.

The Solution To Twitter’s Potential Capitulation

With some serious question marks being slashed over Twitter’s credibility, it is understandable that a lot of the Twitter users would become apprehensive about celebrity tweets and other news tweets. This in turn could signal a massive nosedive as far as Twitter’s popularity is concerned. However, herein lies the solution:

- Arguably the biggest factor behind fake accounts is that anyone can do it and in next to no time. Like mentioned before, it doesn’t take any hacking prowess or an array of computer spy software or cell phone spy software to hoax accounts on Twitter. Therefore, it is imperative to take measures that would discourage potential hoaxers. Like for instance adding a minimal fee of something like $40-50 or coming up with a waiting period before someone can send their first tweet. Not many people would be as steadfast as to pay for, and wait for, tweeting fake news.

- Another thing that would make celebrity and reporter accounts more conspicuous than the blue badge would be if Twitter were to give them a new font, or some other means of prominence. This would surely reduce the barrage of fake tweets and fallacious accounts.

- Generally Twitter accounts regulate their own stories, but to monitor and regulate fake stories maybe Twitter should hire a team of editors and other staff members – along the lines of Wikipedia – that would help ensure the authenticity and credibility of Twitter.

Unless Twitter can address this issue, there’s more than a fair chance that it would witness an exodus of users who’d hanker after other sites that do not have any doubts over their reliability. You might have what it takes to muster the attention of tech savvy hordes from around the globe, but the current generation is so spoiled that all it would take is a minor issue and an available alternative and they wouldn’t have any second thoughts about jumping ship. Twitter wouldn’t want that.

James Clark’s work revolves around tracking apps and software. His most recent stint in cell phone tracking has focused on iPhone tracking. Clark’s readers follow this work to get the latest scoop on all things tracking.

Like what you read?

If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below: