
Steve Jobs vs. Fake Steve Jobs - J3L2404
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Steve-Jobs-vs-Fake-Steve-Jobs-2920
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pluies
> "Last time the @ceoSteveJobs account made headlines it was because it had
> confused the UK's Daily Mail enough to publish a post quoting it as the real
> Steve Jobs account"

Oh, _come on_. Any serious magazine should check its sources. The fact that
the Daily Mail is a tabloid doing shoddy journalism and apparently not able to
recognize satire is not a valid argument.

~~~
bigfudge
>Any serious magazine

This is the Mail we're talking about...

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rahoulb
A friend of a friend used to write for the Mail and he claimed that they all
knew exactly what they were doing (and normally personally disagreed with what
they were writing).

They know their audience very well and know exactly which buttons to press to
make sales.

~~~
bigfudge
I guess you're probably right. I know the same is true for the Sun.

However the Mail's science (read medical) writing is so woefully bad that if
they do know better they are more evil than I can imagine.

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mortenjorck
There's a simple UI design answer to this.

You know the blue "verified" seal that appears on celebrity accounts that have
gone through Twitter's verification program? Add a second icon. A Rubber
chicken or something, labeled "parody" for accounts such as ceoSteveJobs,
BPGlobalPR, SarahPalinUSA, and any others that might trick more credulous
viewers.

~~~
Xuzz
(However, Twitter did shut down the "verified account" program -- it was a
"beta test" and they no longer are adding new accounts to it. Talk about
confusing.)

~~~
citricsquid
Not true! Just this week (I think it was Friday) Notch (creator of Minecraft)
was added to the "verified" program: <http://twitter.com/notch>

~~~
Xuzz
The weird thing is that they still add some people, but they claim it isn't
adding anyone new.

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hebejebelus
I think that most other parody accounts have "This is a parody account" or
something resembling that in their publicly visible descriptions. As the
letter the fake account's operator got only said to mark the account as fake,
that may do.

The @ceoSteveJobs account does, at time of writing, have this in its
description, but that may have been added after the letter or this article was
written.

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Samuel_Michon
Did anyone else think the article would be about Dan Lyons (aka 'Fake Steve
Jobs')? Having several fake Steve Jobses gets pretty confusing.

(The other fake Steve: <http://www.fakesteve.net>)

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luckyisgood
If Apple gets away with this, i expect the Church to demand the same for
www.twitter.com/jesus.

Because you know, people do get confused. Like UK's Daily Mail.

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crazydiamond
The blog was insightful and fun a year or so back. It became boring after it
was "outed". Using "Fake" in the blog did not dampen its effect, so why should
it do so in the twitter account.

~~~
hebejebelus
I don't think that the parody account in question and the popular Fake Steve
Jobs blog are related (though this doesn't detract from your point).

