Before I begin, I just want to say that I decided to get away from my usual tech announcement or review and focus on some general tech news. I can almost guarantee that anyone who has a Twitter account is following multiple celebrities. The problem with this is some people who have absolutely nothing better to do than impersonate celebs over the internet are constantly making fake Twitter usernames that claim to be the real deal. On May 12, 2009, rapper and hip hop recording artist Kanye West  called out Twitter executives on his personal blog, saying that they are irresponsible for allowing such fake celebrity accounts to be created and maintained, including those that use Kanye’s credentials (you can find his internet rampage here). Jumping on the Twitter-hate bandwagaon was Tony La Russa, the manager of the MLB St. Louis Cardinals, who is now suing Twitter because someone is pretending to be him on their site. Just today, Twitter’s co-founder, Biz Stone (@biz), responded to the lawsuit by saying it is “an unneccessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous”. Twitter has since suspended the fake La Russa account.

Twitter’s solution to this apparent problem is what they call “verified accounts”. This summer, Twitter will release a beta of the verified accounts to a select group of public officials, recording artists, actors/actresses, athletes, and other famous celebrities. As pictured in the below picture, the real celebrities will have a verified account seal on their profile, ensuring other users that the account is, in fact, legitimate. Hopefully this future feature will prove useful, and send Twitter in the right direction in regard to stopping internet identity fraud among celebrities.

The verified account seal