5 ms·
Steve Jobs vs. Fake Steve Jobs
- crazydiamond 16y agoThe blog was insightful and fun a year or so back. It became boring after it was "outed". Using "Fake" in the blog did not dampen its effect, so why should it do so in the twitter account.
- hebejebelus 16y agoI don't think that the parody account in question and the popular Fake Steve Jobs blog are related (though this doesn't detract from your point).
- hebejebelus 16y agoI think that most other parody accounts have "This is a parody account" or something resembling that in their publicly visible descriptions. As the letter the fake account's operator got only said to mark the account as fake, that may do. The @ceoSteveJobs account does, at time of writing, have this in its description, but that may have been added after the letter or this article was written.
- pluies 16y ago> "Last time the @ceoSteveJobs account made headlines it was because it had confused the UK's Daily Mail enough to publish a post quoting it as the real Steve Jobs account" Oh, come on. Any serious magazine should check its sources. The fact that the Daily Mail is a tabloid doing shoddy journalism and apparently not able to recognize satire is not a valid argument.
- bigfudge 16y ago>Any serious magazine This is the Mail we're talking about...
- rahoulb 16y agoA friend of a friend used to write for the Mail and he claimed that they all knew exactly what they were doing (and normally personally disagreed with what they were writing). They know their audience very well and know exactly which buttons to press to make sales.
- bigfudge 16y agoI guess you're probably right. I know the same is true for the Sun. However the Mail's science (read medical) writing is so woefully bad that if they do know better they are more evil than I can imagine.
- Natsu 16y agoWas the Daily Mail actually even "confused"? I figured they were just looking for the most attention grabbing stories and headlines, truth be damned. The sad thing is that you still occasionally get people who take them seriously. Even the Onion has more accurate reporting and that's by accident!
- mortenjorck 16y agoThere's a simple UI design answer to this. You know the blue "verified" seal that appears on celebrity accounts that have gone through Twitter's verification program? Add a second icon. A Rubber chicken or something, labeled "parody" for accounts such as ceoSteveJobs, BPGlobalPR, SarahPalinUSA, and any others that might trick more credulous viewers.
- jonknee 16y agoSadly, @SarahPalinUSA is no parody.
- glhaynes 16y agoIf you make people "opt-in" to parody, there'll just be people who don't do so and thus dupe the easily-duped even more easily.
- Xuzz 16y ago(However, Twitter did shut down the "verified account" program -- it was a "beta test" and they no longer are adding new accounts to it. Talk about confusing.)
- citricsquid 16y agoNot true! Just this week (I think it was Friday) Notch (creator of Minecraft) was added to the "verified" program: http://twitter.com/notch http://twitter.com/notch
- Xuzz 16y agoThe weird thing is that they still add some people, but they claim it isn't adding anyone new.
- luckyisgood 16y agoIf Apple gets away with this, i expect the Church to demand the same for www.twitter.com/jesus. Because you know, people do get confused. Like UK's Daily Mail.
- Samuel_Michon 16y agoDid anyone else think the article would be about Dan Lyons (aka 'Fake Steve Jobs')? Having several fake Steve Jobses gets pretty confusing. (The other fake Steve: http://www.fakesteve.net http://www.fakesteve.net)