Hey, fake Wendi Deng on Twitter: Real Wendi Deng Murdoch, wife of Rupert, might be saving a pie in the face for you, for not being able to pull off a spoof for longer, when you fooled major media outlets, as well as Twitter. But in the same two days since the real Rupert Murdoch has been on Twitter, the fake Wendi has only managed not quite 10,000 followers, while the real media tycoon has gained more than 91,000.
But, how this anonymous prankster (who posted under @Wendi_Deng) managed to slip through the cracks as the real pie-throwing deal for that coveted Twitter verification that was bestowed upon Murdoch, we don't know, although The Atlantic Wire has already tried to get an answer and received a curt, "We don't comment on individual accounts or the verification process," from a Twitter spokesperson.
Sophos dissected the hoax in great detail, showing the tweets that confirmed the fakery and questioned the verification process as well.
Eventually, Twitter admitted its error: “We can confirm the @wendi_deng account was mistakenly verified for a short period & apologize for the confusion.” (This didn't vary very much from the answer Twitter gave us directly: "We don't comment on our verification process but can confirm that the @wendi_deng account was mistakenly verified for a short period of time. We apologize for the confusion this caused."
But for now, it looks like Murdoch is in genuine tweeting territory, and he's got the hang of the thing, to the point where he's engaging commenters directly (or trying to — we did see some blanks on his profile page) and letting his opinions fly. Oh my, an uncensored, handler-free media mogul let loose to the Twitterverse. No longer will we have any doubts on his politics, commitment to fitness and vacations!
And on what we think is the Steve Jobs biography: "Steve Jobs biog interesting but unfair. Family must hate."
Or movies, for that matter: "Saw Fox film Descendants. Thank God, one to be proud of. Star Geo Clooney deserves Oscar, maybe film too."
With tweets like this, we wouldn't be surprised if News Corp spokespeople responses start being interpreted the way this was, in Financial Times: "With Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey welcoming Rupert to his site, we can be reasonably sure that he really is the media mogul. A News Corp spokeswoman replied to the New York Times‘ question of whether her boss was now tweeting with the long-suffering sigh of 'Oh yes.' "
More stories:
- Media mogul Rupert Murdoch takes to Twitter
- Lawsuit raises ’Who owns your Twitter account?’ issue
- Man sends massive number of tweets via Post Office
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