It turns out even nobodies like me have impostor Twitter accounts. I learned about the first one (I’m aware of) in May. The bio was copied word for word. The photo is a good-looking version of me in about thirty years. I found the whole thing amusing and even started following the account. Charles Ian Chuna did not reciprocate.
Looking around Twitter this morning, I found another account “borrowing” my identity. This one’s considerably more brazen, going so far as to use what (until today) had been my avatar. What’s more alarming is how that user knew I’m “in desperate need of money.” I probably shouldn’t be so open on Facebook.
What happened with the power cable? I hope I’m okay.
Fearing the unknown consequences of having fake accounts with my names on them floating around, I decided to report them to Twitter for spamming.
So what’s going on? My impostor accounts were likely generated by software, packaged in bundles, and sold to others who want to artificially increase their number of Followers. Nicole Perlroth’s great post in April on The NYT Bits blog reveals the background for the marketing scheme in which I’ve become an unwitting participant. At the time of the article, there were an estimated 20 million fake Twitter accounts.
I’m hoping Twitter will follow up on my complaint so there will be two fewer accounts to deal with.
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