Ever since Twitter developed a system in 2009 for authenticating celebrity accounts, following a lawsuit by then-St Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa over the unauthorised use of his name, the microblogging site’s blue-and-white “Verified Badge” has become an authoritative imprimatur — the surest way to tell whether an account is genuine or fake.
But the system is under greater scrutiny today after the administrator of an account allegedly belonging to Wendi Deng Murdoch, which briefly received the Verified Badge after launching on Sunday, admitted that she was not, in fact, the wife of News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, who had joined Twitter right before the New Year with his own verified account.
Before the revelation, news outlets had dissected Rupert and Wendi’s splashy appearance on the social networking site tweet by tweet (Rupert praised Rick Santorum and Fox films, while Wendi advised her beloved Rupert on Twitter etiquette, flirted with the likes of Ricky Gervais, and overused exclamation points and smiley faces).
