We – and, indeed, the online journalistic world – would usually take Twitter’s blue ‘verified’ tick as a sign that an account for a celebrity or brand wasn’t fake. Alas, that wasn’t the case for @itsmorrissey, the account that sprang into life earlier this month claiming to be the official tweets of the former Smiths singer. “I would like to stress that I do not have either a Twitter or a Facebook account. I gather that a Twitter account has been opened in my name – as ‘It’s Morrissey’ – but it is NOT Morrissey,” explained the star in a statement. “I do not know who has opened this recent Twitter account, but please be aware that it is bogus. That’s, of course, if you should remotely care.” Soon, his label Harvest Records took over the account and shut it down: “We’ve taken over @itsmorrissey to protect it from interlopers. Alas, it’s already time to bid farewell to the account,” explained Harvest. What’s yet to be explained is how the fraudster managed to get through Twitter’s celebrity verification process to get that little blue tick.
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