Your Twitter Identity

The Associated Press reports that the rapper Kanye West posted a scathing essay on his blog criticizing Twitter for allowing users to assume his identity on the social networking service. He called on Twitter to suspend any and all accounts that were impersonating him. The complete text of this essay follows with original punctuation intact:

Photo Credit: Tyler Curtis(This spaz comes courtesy of losers making fake Kanye West Twitter accounts) I DON'T HAVE A FUCKING TWITTER... WHY WOULD I USE TWITTER??? I ONLY BLOG 5 PERCENT OF WHAT I'M UP TO IN THE FIRST PLACE. I'M ACTUALLY SLOW DELIVERING CONTENT BECAUSE I'M TOO BUSY ACTUALLY BUSY BEING CREATIVE MOST OF THE TIME AND IF I'M NOT AND I'M JUST LAYING ON A BEACH I WOULDN'T TELL THE WORLD. EVERYTHING THAT TWITTER OFFERS I NEED LESS OF. THE PEOPLE AT TWITTER KNOW I DON'T HAVE A FUCKING TWITTER SO FOR THEM TO ALLOW SOMEONE TO POSE AS ME AND ACCUMULATE OVER A MILLION NAMES IS IRRESPONSIBLE AND DECEITFUL TO THERE FAITHFUL USERS. REPEAT... THE HEADS OF TWITTER KNEW I DIDN'T HAVE A TWITTER AND THEY HAVE TO KNOW WHICH ACCOUNTS HAVE HIGH ACTIVITY ON THEM. IT'S A FUCKING FARCE AND IT MAKES ME QUESTION WHAT OTHER SO CALLED CELEBRITY TWITTERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL OR FAKE. HEY TWITTER, TAKE THE SO CALLED KANYE WEST TWITTER DOWN NOW .... WHY? ... BECAUSE MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS LOUD!!!!!!!!!

As of this composition, Twitter has complied with Mr. West's request as accounts such as "kanyewest" have been suspended. However, those with the user names "WestKanye" and "MrKanyeWest" continue to operate. The co-founder of Twitter, Biz Stone, said that Twitter is looking at how best to implement an account verification system.

This incident received much publicity in the national media primarily due to Mr. West's profanity-laden blog posting and his unique grammar. But little has been said about Mr. Stone's assertion that Twitter will look at ways to ensure that situations like this do not occur in the future. How can this be achieved?

The issues Twitter has faced with celebrity impersonations have been numerous. A previous entry on this site detailed the celebrity impersonation of Dr. Robert H. Schuller, the famed televangelist. It was noted that Twitter's policy states that "pretending to be another person or business as entertainment or in order to deceive is impersonation." The criterion used is this: "Would a reasonable person be aware that it's a joke?" In the meantime, the approach taken is that absent any complaints, the assumption is that registrants are who they claim to be.

Since even before the famous New Yorker cartoon whose caption read "On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog," the question of verifying one's identity in the online community has been a concern. The national media has focused on the celebrity aspect of this issue. But because a celebrity is, by nature, a public figure, sorting out the impersonators is a relatively easy task. By nature of the publicity and notice that a celebrity can generate, all doubt as to which accounts are legitimate can be eliminated.

Not everyone, however, is a public figure. What can be done when a normal citizen wants to defend or establish his or her identity on Twitter that is believed to be hijacked? For example, if John Q. Public wants to assume the identity of his neighbor John Doe, how would Twitter stop this? What account verification system of which Mr. Stone speaks can ever solve what is essentially identity theft? These questions become more important as online social networking assumes an ever-more important role in our lives.

The federal government addressed its own concerns regarding the identification of individuals by compelling its citizens to apply for Social Security numbers, which have become a de facto national identification system. One can change his or her looks, name, even gender for all that matters, and the Social Security number will serve as the unique identifying marker differentiating one person from all others. Twitter, obviously, cannot use this method.

In the end, the aggrieved may not have any recourse. So a person with an ax to grind with a neighbor can wreak havoc by issuing tweets under his or her assumed name and little could be done to stop it. Teenagers in school can torment the less popular among them by doing the same. On Twitter, a person is who they say they are. And, unless you're a celebrity with the power to compel media attention, that seems unlikely to change anytime soon.

Comments

[Allan Gardyne]

I was impersonated on Twitter, too, and had to complain three times before the fake account was dumped. If you haven't grabbed your name on Twitter, I recommend you do now before someone else does.