Twitter caught faking users’ tweets | Hacker News Reader

Twitter caught faking users’ tweets

venturebeat.com

111 pointscahitonur53 comments

1) Headline is highly misleading. The "fake" tweets were for a fake product in a mockup used in an ad for Twitter's ad platform. Still a bad idea, but nowhere close to what the headline is implying.

2) The venturebeat article doesn't add anything over what appears to be the original article (http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/07/23/twitter-fakes-re...).

As Reuters states, California law recognizes the right of individuals to their name and likeness, so companies cannot use people in ads without their consent.

A few lines down there is an adblock with 8 stories, 4 of which have faces of celebrities.

A few lines down there is an adblock with 8 stories, 4 of which have faces of celebrities.

They may actually be violating something there.

Unrelated, but one of my first jobs was for an online merchant that used very underhanded methods. They would do ad buys on Yahoo and then setup mod_rewrite rules that would show different ads to anyone from a Yahoo subnet. Therefore the ad rep would approve the ad buy, but actual users ended up seeing completely different content. Very, very seedy.

This was also my shortest job ever, and I was not offended when the owner threatened to sue me if I stole the "company secrets". Hah!

I don't know how it works but I imagine they (press) can use celebrity images for stories because they aren't classified as ads. Just a guess.

I guess I don't quite understand the controversy. To my knowledge twitter never claimed these were legitimate tweets, and they certainly looked contrived. Who is getting fooled here and at what harm?

This strikes me as typical silicon valley gossip news—ultimately worthless except to drive people to news aggregators and the offending sites. I even went on twitter for the first time in a month!

The fact they were associated with real twitter accounts seems sketchy.

I would see how it could be a mistake; almost any username the designer would make up is likely to be a real username.

Yes, but they also used someone's profile picture, so I don't think that was the issue.

Even so, this seems like outrage for the sake of outrage. Did the users suffer any kind of harm whatsoever?

They weren't paid for their endorsement.

It's like being focused on at a football match. They didn't 'endorse' the match or the broadcaster, and it seems like most people love their 5 seconds of fame.

That's different because they showed up at the football match, and that's all that's being relayed. They didn't endorse the match or the broadcaster, but we're also not being told they did - which is what the fake tweets are doing.

“This @baristabar ad is giving me the coffee shakes. Looks so good!”

“I wish I could make fancy lattes like in the @barristabar commercial,”

“What is the song in the new @baristabar commercial? I love it!”

Barista Bar is fake so they're not endorsing anything really. I agree that it's a mistake on Twitter's part, but it doesn't seem malicious or serious. Public accounts and photos have got a bit more publicity than they expected.

No, it doesn't sound malicious or serious. Article is worthwhile almost exclusively as a "hey, don't do this"

Is it still an endorsement if the thing they're endorsing doesn't exist?

They didn't even endorse a real company....

Real harm would be hard to prove, but this is deeply unprofessional on Twitter's part. You could probably make a case for implied endorsement, and maybe even win, but that seems besides the point.

This would be like a Google commercial featuring "blowski, Google User" in one part. There's no real harm to you, and you are a Google user (I assume), but you've been publicized in a massive way that you never consented to. People do not appreciate being thrust into the limelight suddenly and without warning.

This isn't a huge outrage, but it does suggest some process failure on Twitter's part. You never, ever, ever, ever, ever mock up designs with real user data. This looks like what happened here - someone thoughtlessly used the username and profile pic in a mockup, which eventually made its way to PR without verification.

There are some poor processes in Twitter's design department, evidently. Hopefully they'll learn from this. Never mock up designs with real data. Twitter should have a reserve of handles/profiles they actually own for marketing uses.

Most feature launches that need a 'scapegoat' use employees' likenesses or profiles. For example:

- the 'Twitter Teacher' who appears in the sign up flow used to work at Twitter;

- and, the profiles used in the verification flow are also employees (http://dashes.com/anil/2013/03/what-its-like-being-verified-...).

I agree that this was unprofessional though and hope the offenders learn from the mistake.

> deeply unprofessional on Twitter's part.

Agreed, but 'deeply unprofessional' should not imply hysteria. Worst case scenario, someone thinks their friend likes a coffee shop that does not exist.

I agree that hysteria would be an inappropriate response.

The problem is that Twitter was using real user accounts with made-up tweets. It's ok to make up tweets for the demo, but they should have also used fake accounts.

Yeah, they should have used fake accounts. but it's not a huge deal. "Twitter caught using real user's handles in advertising mockup" is much less of a story than "twitter caught faking users tweets".

duaneb 2 hours ago | link

Oh, I get it now. Putting putting words in people's virtual mouths without their permission or knowledge, then using it for advertising purposes, isn't such a good idea after all.

LOL. That is an insightful (and Hillarious!) comment. I knew something was wrong right away, but it took me a moment to figure out what!

Maybe you should ask a hacker and they could explain the controversy to you? Or maybe just ask a decent human being?

>I guess I don't quite understand the controversy. To my knowledge twitter never claimed these were legitimate tweets

Thinking they are legitimate is the DEFAULT expectation.

The only way for them to not claim they are legitimate tweets is to actually state, visibly, that they are NOT legitimate.

And that's without even taking into account that they used REAL account names.

>Who is getting fooled here and at what harm?

Who the fuck told Twitter that I, as a user, want my REAL ACCOUNT HANDLE, advertising stuff I don't know about?

>Thinking they are legitimate is the DEFAULT expectation.

Not if you're looking at a mockup in an ad. Quite the opposite, actually.

If they hadn't used real users' names, I'd be inclined to agree. But they did, and I'm not.

Still disagree - when I see a mockup like that I assume it's all fake, including the user names. The surprising part isn't that the tweets are fake, but that the usernames are real.

I agree that my default assumption would be that all the data was made up. If I saw a handle and photo of someone I knew, though, I'd probably assume the rest of that tweet was genuine as well.

> Thinking they are legitimate is the DEFAULT expectation.

Maybe for someone who has never viewed an ad before (which almost entirely exist in hypothetical universes, aka fictional), but it's clearly marketing speak and not someone's actual writing.

What's with this bizarro idea?

Ads that show fictional stuff are one kind. The kind that doesn't mention the names of people they show, as if they are real people. E.g: the cool guy goes in the bar, grabs a cold beer of brand X and wins the girl. A guy is driving a car in a rough terrain with epic music, etc.

On the other side, ads that show _testimonials_ or _endorsments_ on SOCIAL MEDIA, are expected to show REAL posts/tweets/etc -- or, at the very least, to have PAID the people mentioned in them to lie about their love of the product.

Try making an ad with @MagicJohnson or @Oprah shown twitting about endorsing your product without their knowledge, and see how fast the lawyers will knock on your door...

> Try making an ad with @MagicJohnson or @Oprah shown twitting about endorsing your product without their knowledge, and see how fast the lawyers will knock on your door...

The users did NOT endorse twitter more than they already do—that is, implicitly, by using twitter. Unless their handle is trademarked I don't see an issue.

EDIT: I'd like to clarify I believe that Twitter fucked up, I just think the outrage(!?) is hysterical, proportionally to what they deserve (i.e. "Swap out the handles and avatars and move on, maybe issue an apology to the users and an explanation"). Nobody is accusing them of actually faking endorsements, most people wouldn't recognize the people portrayed and they'd be pretty lame endorsements.

>The users did NOT endorse twitter more than they already do—that is, implicitly, by using twitter. Unless their handle is trademarked I don't see an issue.

No, but they are shown endorse a fake "Barista bar". Which is something they never did.

>I'd like to clarify I believe that Twitter fucked up, I just think the outrage(!?) is hysterical

A few online angry posts and news articles is "hysterical"? I reserve that word for people _actually_ foaming at the mouth, hacking attempts, death threats, etc.

>* Nobody is accusing them of actually faking endorsements, most people wouldn't recognize the people portrayed and they'd be pretty lame endorsements.*

An endorsement is an endorsement whether you recognize the person or not. And they did fake endorsements. It would take a perceptive viewer (of the kind that is lacking) to note that the ad is fake -- and even then, he could assume those are legit tweets.

Oh, and it doesn't have to be "most people". It's enough that their friends or followers recognize them. You except twitter to NOT use your name with words you never said.

> Thinking they are legitimate is the DEFAULT expectation.

My default expectation for user-generated content in a commercial or advertisement is that it is made-up.

So someone could take a screenshot of your post, put their own text in the body instead of yours, show it to millions of people, and you wouldn't mind? What company do you hate most? Microsoft? Google? So you wouldn't mind if we changed the text of your post to support them and showed your username to everyone as loving the company? And stuck your picture next to it as well?

I'm mostly pissed off because the laws against using likeness/pictures/etc. to promote products without model sign off get in my way myself all the time, so seeing Twitter break the laws I have to follow is very annoying.

VentureBeat caught reporting on stories that aren't stories.

...What? Some designer used user's profiles as stand-ins when making a sample screenshot. They didn't change it out when it was released. When it was pointed out, they fixed it. So what?

The headline is misleading. The problem isn't about "fake" tweets. Of course the tweets were fake, the coffee bar doesn't exist in real life. The issue is that they should have used dummy twitter handles and photos, not random real ones.

Those footer links looks like they're part of the theme. Its quite common for shady Wordpress themes to add SEO links, sometimes even making them invisible to logged-in users, so that the website owner won't notice.

So that's how you make money making WP themes.

Supposedly Google's getting better at punishing that sort of behavior. But, yes.

I just assume Twitter's Terms of Service allows them to whatever they care to with your Twitter name and profile pic along with the naming rights to your child born child.

Why couldn't Twitter have just made up the names?

It probably even would have been easier than selecting the real names that they wanted to use.

And if you're too lazy to make up fake names and grab stock photos for an internal mockup, at least use the accounts of fellow employees and not random account holders.

I feel so much second hand embarrassment when an article opens with an image macro.

Same feeling when I see a tech company have memes in their recruitment ads. Definitely not the kind of company I would want to work for.

I was gonna visit this coffee bar too but now I won't because the endorsement tweets were faked! I am outraged sir. Outraged.

Did that come across with the implied sarcastic tone I'm trying to convey? Because I have a solution to your problems - don't use twitter. It's really not as outlandish as you think.

Very good idea, every time a company or organization screws you over, just take it, and don't use them anymore. No need to complain ever.

No matter if the service is otherwise needed (e.g you are a company and you need a twitter account as part of your reach strategy) or what they did was actually against the law and your rights.

Heck, why didn't that Rosa Parks girl just quit using the bus services, instead of causing such a stir?

(And, no, it didn't come out as sarcastic. Mostly as inane and bend-over-ish).

Nice false comparison of a simple annoyance to an important social cause. I'm surprised you didn't use Schindler instead.

I appreciate your input.

>Nice false comparison of a simple annoyance to an important social cause.

"Having to sit on the back of the bus" was considered a "simple annoyance" back then too. In fact they scolded her because she was making fuss about such a matter.

But the idea of bending over is the same -- I just magnified it so you can see it clearly. At least you now agree it's an "annoyance". Before you had it as a "non issue".

And no, a company using your account without your consent in ads is not a "simple annoyance" either.

Besides not having your consent, and you not getting paid, there are business, personal and other issues to consider. E.g account X appears in the "ad" endorsing some "Barista Bar". What if X has a competing shop of his own? Or is against coffee and stimulants and writes books on health diets? What if X is an employeer in a coffee shop, and his boss sees the fake twit as him endorsing the competitor?

I fail to see how not using twitter won't solve any of your hypothetical problems. See, this is how we actually impact change - We stop using those businesses. If it was more outrageous I might feel the need to protest further, but this is my protest.

Comparing a tiny twitter fiasco to the Civil Rights movement is a mistake bro.

I'll bet you say a lot of trivial things are as bad as Hitler too.

Also, stopping the use of a service is pretty much the exact opposite of just "taking it".

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