Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#1

Post by eramirem » Sun, Apr 21, 2013, 11:57 AM UTC

The Twitter Rules say: "Impersonation: You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others". I have detected an account (very likely to be a bot) that is posting exactly the same tweets I post, with 5-minutes delay; including mentions and pictures, which mislead people who is being mentioned. That is clearly an impersonation case, but Twitter says that they don't mediate user content UNLESS it violates the Twitter Rules.

Doesn't a bot that replicate your tweets violate the Twitter Rules? Is being Twitter negligent?

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#2

Post by arkitaip » Sun, Apr 21, 2013, 12:07 PM UTC

I suspect that Twitter's response would be very different if you had a - EXPENSIVE - verified account.

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#3

Post by billyto » Sun, Apr 21, 2013, 12:15 PM UTC

Seems like an script is using your account to grow something that looks like a valid user, then they will start spamming. Sadly, twitter doesn't care about non-famous users.

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#4

Post by juandg » Sun, Apr 21, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

Have you tried reporting impersonation? You can do that here: https://support.twitter.com/forms/impersonation

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#5

Post by juandg » Sun, Apr 21, 2013, 1:54 PM UTC

billyto wrote: post #3

Seems like an script is using your account to grow something that looks like a valid user, then they will start spamming. Sadly, twitter doesn't care about non-famous users.

Pretty scary this new trend. They could create a replication bot and get seemingly original content avoiding deletion for spam from twitter, but still being able to inject spam in some of the tweets.

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#6

Post by eramirem » Sun, Apr 21, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

juandg wrote: post #4

Have you tried reporting impersonation? You can do that here: https://support.twitter.com/forms/impersonation

I have reported the issue twice, but Twitter said that since I don't have copyright on the profile picture, they do nothing.

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#7

Post by eramirem » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 11:57 AM UTC

The answer from Twitter Support, they just focused on the bot account profile picture.

"Hello,

Thanks for providing this information. As a policy, we do not mediate user content, including images, unless it violates the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Based on this policy, we will not remove the reported image."

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#8

Post by juandg » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 1:17 PM UTC

eramirem wrote: post #6

juandg wrote: post #4

Have you tried reporting impersonation? You can do that here: https://support.twitter.com/forms/impersonation

I have reported the issue twice, but Twitter said that since I don't have copyright on the profile picture, they do nothing.

But it's not just the profile picture, it's replicating your tweets too, right? That's got to count for something.

Re: Twitter impersonation cases are out of control

#9

Post by eramirem » Tue, Apr 23, 2013, 6:27 PM UTC

juandg wrote: post #8

eramirem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have reported the issue twice, but Twitter said that since I don't have copyright on the profile picture, they do nothing.

But it's not just the profile picture, it's replicating your tweets too, right? That's got to count for something.

yeap, still no solution from Twitter Support. That's frustrating.