Murdoch's 'wife' fools Twitter

Wendi Deng Murdoch's verified Twitter account turned out to be bogus Tuesday when someone else admitted to posing as Rupert Murdoch's wife on the microblogging site.

  1. Twitter gave fake @Wendi_Deng account blue tick, for a few hours. Long enough for BBC, Time, others to report fake tweets as real #WendiGate
  2. Hello Twitter. As News International has finally come to their senses, it's time to confirm that yes, this is a fake account. I'm not Wendi.
  3. But you do have to wonder why they were unsure for so long.
  4. And you have to wonder even more why Twitter verified this account for a full day. I never received any communication from them about this.
  5. I was as surprised - and even a little alarmed - when I saw the Verified tick appear on the profile.
  6. You might ask "why didn't I tell them?" But surely Twitter should be checking out its Verified status more carefully? No?
  7. I'm sorry if some of you feel misled by this Twitter account, but I never said it was entirely genuine. I never said it was a spoof either.
  8. (And I'm as mystified as all of you as to why Twitter reopened its apparently closed Verified Account program for 'Wendi' and Rupert.)
  9. We can confirm that the @wendi_deng account was mistakenly verified for a short period of time and apologize for the confusion this caused.

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Jojo Pasion Malig

Night desk editor for abs-cbnNEWS.com and Poynter writer. Views and opinions are my own. Retweets mean 'Hey, look at this!'

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