'Tweets' from Teoh Beng Hock
By NIKI CHEONG
THE line between real and fake is not so clear on cyberspace because phoney twitterers or phweeters have been floating in twitterverse for a very long time.
The only explanation for how Teoh Beng Hock’s Twitter account (@teohbenghock) could still be updated months after his death is if computers were available in the afterlife.
Then again, he stopped Twittering on August 11 so maybe he got found out. Either that or the account is (are you ready for this?) ... fake.
Gasp. How is this possible considering that the Internet has long become the bastion of truth for many people? Because, and this is specific to the Twitterverse, phweets exist.
Phweets are phoney Tweets (and the phoney Twitterers are phweeters) and these have been floating around the Twitterverse for a very long time.
I was looking at my Twitter stream some months ago and was surprised to see an RT (a re-Tweet, to the uninitiated, which is basically a forwarded Tweet) from, and apologies for creeping you out - murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaaribuu (@altantuya).
Both “Altantuya” and “Teoh Beng Hock” appear to be avenging their deaths from the afterlife.
There are as many phweets as there are tweets
Now you know that it’s just phweets from a disgruntled phweeter. But not all fake Twitter accounts are politically motivated. Many personalities - locally and abroad - have fake accounts.
A search on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed shows five non-active accounts including @tun_mahathir and @mrmahathir (some even playing on his monicker Che Det like @masterdetz and @madet77).
When Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze passed away a couple of weeks ago, a Tweet from “Kanye West” (@kanyewest) made its rounds. It read:
“YO PATRICK SWAYZE I KNOW U JUST DIED & ALL & IMMA LET U FINISH, BUT MICHAEL JACKSON’S DEATH WAS THE BEST ONE THIS YEAR.”
This is obviously a joke, in reference to Kanye’s declaration that Beyonce had the best music video when he interrupted young star Taylor Swift’s speech at the recent MTV VMA ceremony.
The account has since been suspended, although it is possible that the Tweet never came from the account in the first place. Kanye had previously declared on his website that he does not have a Twitter account.
Due to the emerging number of fake accounts, Twitter recently introduced its “Verified” system to help identify the real accounts of famous personalities who have had their identities stolen.
Stars like Ashton Kutcher (@plusk), the first person to gain 1 million followers on Twitter, soon-to-be American Idol judge Ellen Degeneres (@theellenshow) and even popular Singaporean blogger XiaXue (@xiaxue) all have verified accounts.
Ashton Kutcher is the 1st to gain 1 million followers on Twitter
A search for Ellen Degeneres on Twitter brings up more than 10 fake profiles. There are some good fake accounts however. Twitter allows for really good parodies and there has been many phweeter accounts that have lightened up many people’s days.
Case in point are @stewie, the “Twitter account” for the Stewie character in popular animated TV show Family Guy and @the_megan_fox, the hot actress from the two Transformers movies.
Another good one is @osamabinladen, although the phweeter has fizzled out and stopped phweetering since December last year. “His” best Phweet reads: 154 people are following me on Twitter –far more than from the American army!
Of course, it is not just personalities that get their identities stolen. Corporations too have fallen victim to what Twitterers call brandjacking.
Case in point is McDonald’s Malaysia (@mcdelivery) several months ago. The account started out pretty normal, promoting it’s latest fares and
communicating with its followers.
All it took was one Tweet which many of its followers, yours truly included, found distasteful with regards to the political tussle in Perak and all hell broke loose.
The phweeter started insulting his/her followers leading one to visit the real McDonald’s Facebook fan page to verify the Twitter account’s identity.
The reply: it’s a fake.
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