Busting Fake Athletes on Twitter - WSJ.com.
"Brian McCarthy, the NFL's director of corporate communications, who says he was so impressed with [fake athelete Twitter account finder] Mr. Wilhide's work that he took him to lunch and gave him a tour of league offices in New York. "These fake accounts are the same thing as identity theft," he says."
OK, so isn't impersonating someone a crime? Why doesn't Evan Longoria sue someone who pretended to be him on Twitter? A few cases like that would be much more effective for Twitter than getting Twitter to just shut down the fake accounts, right?
And secondly, isn't Twitter also to blame for not verifying all accounts, by requiring a $1 credit card charge in that name to open an account, for example? Wouldn't a print shop be held liable if it accepted a job to print up fake IDs, even non-government IDs?
Finally, it would be trivially easy for the NFL and other concerned parties to make Twitter accounts instantly verifiable: issue official email (e.g. tom.brady@nfl-player.com) accounts to their players that they use to sign up for such things and which redirects mail to the players' personal accounts, if desired.
"Brian McCarthy, the NFL's director of corporate communications, who says he was so impressed with [fake athelete Twitter account finder] Mr. Wilhide's work that he took him to lunch and gave him a tour of league offices in New York. "These fake accounts are the same thing as identity theft," he says."
OK, so isn't impersonating someone a crime? Why doesn't Evan Longoria sue someone who pretended to be him on Twitter? A few cases like that would be much more effective for Twitter than getting Twitter to just shut down the fake accounts, right?
And secondly, isn't Twitter also to blame for not verifying all accounts, by requiring a $1 credit card charge in that name to open an account, for example? Wouldn't a print shop be held liable if it accepted a job to print up fake IDs, even non-government IDs?
Finally, it would be trivially easy for the NFL and other concerned parties to make Twitter accounts instantly verifiable: issue official email (e.g. tom.brady@nfl-player.com) accounts to their players that they use to sign up for such things and which redirects mail to the players' personal accounts, if desired.
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