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Authenticity badges were popping up at Twitter on Friday as the popular micro-blogging service tested a way to verify that people tweeting are who they claim to be.
Twitter accounts for celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey bore blue seals containing white check marks to indicate the identities were verified.
Kutcher's verified account had more than two million followers. There were dozens of others tweeting in his name.
There was also a verified Twitter account for four-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal of the Phoenix Suns.
Impersonation has been a bane for Twitter, which earlier this year suspended a bogus account set up in the name of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
St Louis Cardinals baseball team manager Tony La Russa filed a lawsuit last month against San Francisco-based Twitter over a bogus account set up in his name.
Twitter founder Biz Stone explained in an online message that the verification experiment will begin with "public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well known individuals at risk of impersonation."
"We hope to verify more accounts in the future but due to the resources required, verification will begin only with a small set," he added.
Launched in August 2006, the micro-blogging service has been embraced by U.S. President Barack Obama, singer Britney Spears, bicyclist Lance Armstrong and other politicians, artists and athletes.
© Wire reports
9 Comments
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888naff
whos "Kutcher"? no description given in the article.
ilcub76
Just 'Google' it, and you will know.
tuneintokyo
good luck. that will be a costly effort for all social networks. My friend who is somewhat famous in the USA has fake accounts set up in his name on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace... you name it.
PepinGalarga
seems like ad revenue is not cutting it for these sites.
Badge213
The problem with these systems is it is easy to be someone fake or pretent to be someone else. This is why I hate it when I see news stories about schools, the police, employers, and even news reports searching on myspace etc.
For example, whenever a crime happens (at least in the US) the news always reports "The victims Myspace, or the offenders myspace" or even some universities are now looking at myspace during application procedures. The thing is, it is so easy to ruin one's reputation by creating a fake site, easy to set someone up as well. I know there's one agency out there and all they do is going around to "clear" people's name's who have been victims of fake myspaces and stuff.
pawatan
Twitter is dumb. If you feel like writing short meaningless blogs you can do that with any blogging software. Somehow with Twitter it's "New, revolutionary!"
stirfry
pawatan, i agree completely...actually if someone wants to write short meaningless blogs they should probably not even bother...except for immediate family and really close friends, pretty much nobody gives a s**t about the minor and pointless details of someone else's life
Taka313
Pawatan,
Yeah, I don't really see the value either, but then again (and I speak only for myself here), that may be because I'm getting older.
Taka
flammenwerfer
twitter is useful for news feeds, product updates etc - the personal blog side is rather pointless.