Twitter Fakes Tweets From Real Users to Promote Ad Platform

Jeff Elder, writing for SF Gate:

The users were not pleased when they saw these bogus tweets attributed to them for the first time – after the post went up.

“It’s disturbing and has no place,” says Neil Gottlieb, who was unaware the Twitter blog post featured a tweet with him saying, “What is the song in the new @barristabar commercial? I love it!!” Gottlieb who runs the medical animation company 3FX in Philadelphia said, “To use my image and fake a tweet is wrong and needs to be addressed.”

William Mazeo of Brazil was also unaware his profile pic was placed in the blog post with a phony tweet. The bogus tweet attributed to him read: “I wish I could make fancy lattes like in the @barristabar commercial.” When he saw the blog post for the first time he was surprised and angry.

Why didn’t they just find real users who were so excited about these ads that they honestly tweeted about them? Oh, wait.

★ Wednesday, 24 July 2013