Rachel Maddow Fake Twitter Accounts Demonstrate Importance of Social Media Authenticity
The social media world (not to mention the political pundits) is abuzz about the news that Twitter has shut down a number of fake Twitter accounts that Rachel Maddow purportedly set up to tout her MSNBC show.
The deception was exposed when a huge number of accounts posted the exact same Tweet about Maddow’s show.
The most important take-away from this situation is: It is absolutely essential to be honest and authentic on social media.
Why? First and foremost, lying and cheating is wrong. Period.
If that’ s not reason enough, consider this: If you try to cheat on social media, you will get caught — and the damage to your reputation (your own and your company’s) will be far worse than any benefit you might have gained by whatever you were trying to do.
One writer commenting on the Maddow incident speculated that Maddow might claim that this was done by her staff or fans without her knowledge. I don’t know what she’s going to say, but I know that if others are responsible for your social media content, your social media policy should prohibit any posts that are misleading or outright fraudulent and you should take immediate action if that policy is violated.
Is it okay to have more than one Twitter account? Of course. It’s acceptable to have them for individuals, for companies, for brands within a company, for a variety of strategic reasons. And it’s quite acceptable for those accounts to cross-post and retweet. Just keep it open and honest.
What are your thoughts? Join the conversation below.
8 Responses to “Rachel Maddow Fake Twitter Accounts Demonstrate Importance of Social Media Authenticity”
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These spambots have been annoying real life followers of Rachel Maddow for quite some time; finally the Johnny-Come-Lately conservative blogosphere has taken notice. The entire “Rachel Maddow has fake Twitter accounts” story was started by a conservative blogger who based his assumptions on the multiplicity of accounts; his story is otherwise fact-free. There is no credible evidence presented that these spambot accounts are in any way initiated by or associated with Rachel Maddow, her staff, fans or anyone else with a bona fide interest in the Rachel Maddow show. The use of the #Maddow hashtag on tweets in no way indicates loss of control over Rachel Maddow’s social media content. As everyone knows, there is no control regarding use of any given hashtag on Twitter. Ms. Lynn, if this is the quality of your research when “ghostwriting” then it is unlikely you will have many repeat clients.
Thank you for commenting. I stand by the accuracy of what I have written; I did not say that the tweets in question were initiated by or associated with Rachel Maddow because I don’t know.
What I do know — and what I emphasized in my post — is that honesty and authenticity on social media is important. I simply used this situation to make a point to my readers that trying to manipulate social media in any way that is less than honest and transparent will backfire. If it does turn out that Maddow’s staff is responsible for these accounts, she should take appropriate action. In any case, she should be implementing a crisis management plan to deal with this negative publicity.
@msnbcpr has already come out saying no one associated with the show or MSNBC is involved, and also saying they’ve contacted twitter about the problem. Further, I’m pretty certain that MSNBC already does have policies regarding fraudulent accounts and misrepresentations.
While i take your point that individuals need to be open and honest in their social media dealings–and can even see how this story is a vehicle for making that point, regardless of it’s veracity (in the same way any made-up example can help to illustrate real solutions to actual problems)–I submit that individuals and groups need to be open and honest about the stories they tell using social media, as well. And on that score, this story falls pretty low.
These almost certainly are scraper bots, who copy real tweets and repeat them as their own to appear legitimate. The fact that each of them tweeted one tweet about Rachel Maddow–or even that they used the hashtag #maddow–does not implicate the host, the show, the tv network, or even any individual or group of liberal(s). For all the conservative blogosphere echoing, there is no there, there.
While they have a list of tweets, they have no link to anyone associated with the show.
If this was about promoting Rachel Maddow or the #maddow hashtag in some way, wouldn’t there be more than one tweet per “account” (or bot)?
Has anyone looked at the rest of the tweets, with hashtags for these “followback” services, or other tv shows (#parenthood , for one)? What about the ones that purport to answer other twitter accounts, and actually provide links (I saw several bots this morning “answering” people tweeting about iPhones, giving them a link to a contest where they could win one. The earlier bots answered follow requests with a link to a musician’s twitter account, claiming he always follows back.) Why is it that these conservatives claim that Maddow is the culprit, rather than any of the others who may potentially benefit from these bots. (My money so far is on the tweets with links, as they are the only ones that appear more than once per bot, and because the musician and contest have more to gain… YMMV…)
The fact that the conservative version of the story doesn’t really hold a whole lot of water makes me hope that you are correct, and honesty and integrity does win the day, while falsity–whether it be who one claims to be, who one claims to represent, or the stories one tells, and why–comes back to haunt those who engage in it.
Call me naive, but I do believe that honesty and integrity eventually win. My intent is not to attack or defend Rachel Maddow but to simply use this situation as an example. Clearly Twitter is trying to identify and suspend fake accounts, and that’s something to recognize and respect.
While I agree that MSNBC probably has policies in place regarding social media, my audience is primarily smaller companies that tend to not take the time to establish such policies until they have a crisis to deal with. This story allowed me to make the “ounce of prevention, pound of cure” point.
Another point: I have searched but so far haven’t found a statement from Maddow herself regarding this (and if you have it and want to provide a link, I’d appreciate it). A lesson here is that you need to be prepared to respond immediately when stuff like this happens. Any crisis manager will agree that failing to respond simply compounds the problem.
I am unsurprised that Rachel Maddow has not personally responded to this made-up ‘scandal’ that has lit up the conservative NJs who populate Twitter with their unresearched retweeted BS. There are thousands of tweets every week that claim Rachel Maddow is a “cow”, question her intelligence, patriotism or sexuality, or otherwise hurl epithets her way. Her responding to any of this baloney would just give it false credibility.
If you intended this sad attempt by conservatives to discredit Rachel Maddow to be instructive, you should have clarified that there is no veracity to any of the claims in your original post.
Furthermore, the title of your piece misleads. The bot accounts in question aren’t “fake Rachel Maddow accounts.” If they were, the perps would be claiming to tweet as if they were Rachel Maddow. They are spambots that repetitively tweet the exact same comment about watching her on TV.
Whining about “authenticity in media” is rich coming from a ghostwriter.
Thank you for the opportunity to explain what a ghostwriter does. See my post at http://www.jacquelynlynn.com/sales-marketing-public-relations/what-does-a-ghostwriter-do/. Without the efforts of ghostwriters, the amount of information that would never make it out of the heads of thought leaders and shared with the world at large is incalculable.