Conservatives changed twitter name to 'FactCheckUK' during the TV debate | Hacker News Reader

Conservatives changed twitter name to 'FactCheckUK' during the TV debate

bbc.co.uk

36 pointsjonplackett18 comments

I wonder if Twitter will react: Changing your display name to misrepresent who you are, while keeping your "blue checkmark" smells pretty abusive.

I think anyone else doing this would lose their checkmark. Shouldn't be any different for politicians. But will they be brave enough?

Twitter has explicitly stated that they will allow politicians to violate the rules applicable to others, so this shouldn't be a surprise.

Does this apply to any political institution too? This was the Conservative's main account rather than an individual politician.

It's a common technique used by scammers on Twitter - get verified for a random identity, change your name to Vitalik Buterin, and say you are giving away Bitcoins and Ethers.

It has been many years, yet Twitter did not adopt any specific policy to solve the problem of identity forgery, they just kept playing whack-a-mole.

Twitter could fix this in no time by adding an alert next to a recently changed name (within a few days) and/or a list of previous names. Steam figured this stuff out years ago.

Would be better to change the design to make the real username more prominent. That can't be changed.

Yet, Twitter did nothing despite it has been a problem for years and is used by many scammers.

I feel like if you need to do these kinds of tricks to win maybe you shouldn't win.

It's more of a way of showing off that they are above the rules. It won't be used to hammer them in the press, and Twitter is unlikely to ban them for it.

It's more of the same from them. Last week they doctored a video of the shadow Brexit Minister to make it look like he didn't have an answer for a question on Brexit. In reality he answered the question immediately, and very articulately i might add.

This is part of a long-running campaign of underhanded tactics. There are probably many other things going on that no-one has noticed yet.

I think we can all agree that blue check marks shouldn't be misrepresenting who they are.

That said, the 'outrage' to this is pure political games. Don't be a sucker.

I disagree, this is genuine deceptive behaviour.

Due to the way twitter is designed (badly) it's very easy not to notice the account username. A lot more emphasis is put on the account display name.

So you think it's wrong.. but a reaction to something wrong is purely political gaming? Illogical.

Intent matters. I don't think they were intending to mislead people.

I've worked enough in politics and the marketing side of things to know that the conversation about this gimmick went something like:

"We can 'fact check' during the debates as a way to increase engagement on Twitter, etc."

not like

"We can change our Twitter handle to trick people into thinking our falsehoods are facts."

And if you believe their goal was nefarious, then congrats: you're playing the gross political game.

An official party social media account changing it's branding to masquarade as a fact checking service during a televised debate? The intent to mislead is clear.

A confusing stance.

It's really not. This seems such an obviously devious thing to have done, that I'm amazed they have been so brazen in it. They deserve all the outrage.

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