{"id":3541,"date":"2013-11-12T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T13:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highedwebtech.com\/?p=3541"},"modified":"2016-11-22T15:30:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T20:30:15","slug":"story-fake-twitter-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highedwebtech.com\/2013\/11\/12\/story-fake-twitter-account\/","title":{"rendered":"The story of my fake Twitter account"},"content":{"rendered":"

I joined Twitter on March 15, 2007.<\/p>\n

Sometime in 2013, a new me joined Twitter.<\/p>\n

As I was going through my account last week, it was suggested that I may like a user named @mrichwalsky4. Interesting, I thought. Not counting my Dad, who doesn’t use Twitter, there are one or two other Mike Richwalskys in the world. Maybe one of them had joined Twitter. I thought I’d check out what they had to see.<\/p>\n

First, here’s what my Twitter profile looks like.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s what the profile for @mrichwalsky4 looked like.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Ok, that’s more than a passing resemblance. That’s me. My profile pic. My bio. My URL.<\/p>\n

So many questions starting going through my mind. Who did this? Why? It felt strange to have your online identity stolen and used without your permission. This wasn’t even a parody account, it was downright theft.<\/p>\n

After checking with some friends and colleagues and them saying no, they hadn’t created it. I started to panic.<\/p>\n

The tweets from this account were strange, as well. Here are a few gems from the account.<\/p>\n