Adolescent actress Emma Watson, known around the world for her depiction of brain box Hermione Granger in the sequence of Harry Potter films, has fated fraudsters impersonate her on Twitter. The popular performer has claim that reports that she had conventional a place at Yale University were spread via the micro-blogging site because of fake profile which is using her name.
A spokesperson for Watson posted on Emma Watson’s official website, though, debunking the claims.
“Emma does not have a Twitter account and these -rumors are false. Emma is still annoying to make a decision whether she wants to attend university in the UK or the USA and hasn’t conventional any placements at this time,” said the statement.
Of course, this is distant from the first time that a fake celebrity has caused mischief on Twitter.Newspapers were lively with news that Twitter had reached a tipping point when it was reported that the Dalai Lama had connected the service, only for the profile to be later exposed as fake.
And late last year I blogged about the various fake Al Gores on Twitter, and when it was reported that Vint Cerf’s Twitter account appear to be spew spam it took a journalist from The Register to dig around and discover that the account was fake.
More lately Scottish actor David Tennant has been affectionately lampooned – although, in his case, the fakers were frank that they were not really the award-winning star of BBC TV’s Doctor Who series.Most of this stuff is pretty harmless, compared to when real celebrity’s accounts get hacked like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Barrack Osama.
But there is a basic subject of too much faith here. People appear to consider what they read on their computer screen – even though anybody can create a Twitter account and claim to be, say, Michael Jackson without any checks done on their true identity.The point is simple – stop being so trusting. Look for good verification that you’re communicating with the person you really think you are.