Twitter Safe? Think again

Just when we thought that Facebook was the ‘in thing’, a one of a kind, micro-blogging service, Twitter came about. Twitter (Dunlap & Lowenthal 2009, p. 130) communication between users to through answers to a simple question, ‘What are you doing?’. Consequently, users can update its followers with simple messages called ‘tweets’ that are like ‘I’m at McDonald’s now with Jerome and Kate’ or informing and sharing news like ‘Oh no! Limewire is no more!’. According to Twitter (2010) website, there are about 175 million registered users and there are 95 million tweets tweeted daily. In comparison to blogs, using Twitter to disseminate information is faster and more immediate because unlike blogs, Twitter lets you post things within the 140 words count limit. Thus, updates are short and can be posted in an instant. Blogs on the other hand, are normally longer in content and therefore is not as immediate.

However, like many other online social sites, Twitter is also exposed to fraudulence of identity accounts. A case for example was the surface of Dalai Lama’s Twitter account which turned out to be a fake (Owens, 2009). Owens also reports that the fake account apparently managed to collect almost 20,000 followers and representatives of Dalai Lama were only notified about the issue two days later.

Dalai Lama on Twitter? Source: www.thefirstpost.uk

Theft Identity is something that is common especially in the United States. Identity Theft Statistics (2010) reports that are more than 30 million victims of theft identity in the past 5 years. Within a year, at least 10 million Americans falls victim to theft Identity (Identity Theft Statistics, 2009). Even celebrities and renowned people are not safe from theft identity. As mentioned before was the case of Dalai Lama. But on top of that are other many high profile cases, like lead singer of Paramore, Hayley Williams had her account hacked and a nude picture of her posted up. Besides that, Britney Spears also unfortunately had her account broken into and a defamatory tweet regarding her privates was posted. So moral of the story is that one must be wary about that no online social networking site is safe from theft identity.

Hayley Williams after the incident. Source: www.zeitgeistyreport.com

Britney defamed. Source: www.techcrunch.com

REFERENCES:

About Twitter 2010, Twitter, viewed 11 November 2010, <http://twitter.com/about>.

Dunlap, JC & Lowenthal, PR, ‘Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence’, Journal of Information Systems Education, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 129-135.

Identity Theft Statistics 2009, Spam Laws, viewed 11 November 2010, <http://www.spamlaws.com/id-theft-statistics.html>.

Identity Theft Statistics 2010, Credit Reports, viewed 11 November 2010, <http://www.creditreport.com/identitytheft/facts/statistics.aspx>.

Owens, S 2009, 'How Celebrity Imposters Hurt Twitter's Credibility', Media Shift, 20 February viewed 11 November 2010, <http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/02/how-celebrity-imposters-hurt-twitters-credibility051.html>.