Twitter launches Verified Accounts to put an end to Twitter-jacking

Now and again we hear about celebrities and brands that have found their names hijacked on Twitter. Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, recently threatened to take Twitter to court over a person who portrayed himself as La Russa on Twitter. Another example of a fake account is the Swedish writer and journalist Jan Guillou who’s Twitter account has been hijacked (although he doesn’t seem to mind).

But now Twitter may have found a solution to the problems with identity theft on the microblogging site. Twitter is launching Verified Accounts which means that celebrities and users with a large following may apply to get their accounts approved to show that it is in fact the real person behind the tweets.

“With this feature, you can easily see which accounts we know are ‘real’ and authentic. That means we’ve been in contact with the person or entity the account is representing and verified that it is approved. (This does not mean we have verified who, exactly, is writing the tweets.)”

An example of a verified account is http://twitter.com/iamdiddy

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