On Thursday, we pointed out the existence of a fake George McCaskey account on Twitter — which had duped folks like Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport, and NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy into following it. (It got us at first, too.)
After the fake George posted that the Bears aren’t for sale, we asked the Bears if the account is real. It isn’t.
Or more accurately it wasn’t.
Along the way, Twitter added a note based on a link to our story, pointing out that the account impersonates McCaskey in violation of the site’s parody, commentary, and fan account policy.
That’s fine, but ferreting out fake accounts shouldn’t be a game of Whac-A-Mole. The fake McCaskey account never should have existed. It never should have had a blue checkmark, which has become meaningless now that a blue checkmark can be bought. (We got ours for free, without asking for it. We won’t pay for a gold one.)
It’s just one of the various concrete reasons why Twitter has become less valuable to many. It’s too easy to fool someone. And it’s too hard to take things at face value.
