The Fake Peter Mansbridge
It seems some prankster has created a parody Twitter account for Peter Mansbridge.
The account is using the handle “petermansbridg.” It’s obviously a joke. For instance one of the fake updates after the Billy Bob Thornton interview says “Ghomeshi needs all the help he can get. I beat him in an arm wrestle last week at our local on Front – didn’t even loosen my tie.”
Another tweet written after the layoff announcements reads “Helping 800 CBCers pack their desks. Many have never witnessed a grown ‘Bridge cry…until today. Farewell noble colleagues!”
There’s been a whole bunch of fake or parody Twitter accounts pop up in the last few months, a practice known as Twitter Jacking or Phweeting (phony tweetering). The list of people with parody accounts includes among others: Vladimir Putin, Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney, David Letterman, and Lindsay Lohan.
All parody aside, there is some risk to these kinds of phony accounts, especially when they are being used to write to real people. The fake Mansbridge account includes one reply to Ian Capstick, a communications consultant and blogger in Ottawa. The post reads “your bio pics are dreamy. who did them? i need some done.”
To which Ian Capstick replied in the comments below “You know, I’ve never laughed harder at an @reply on Twitter before…and I’m not sure there is any risk of folks mistaking @petermansbridg for the real one for long; speaking of which I hope the real Peter Mansbridge sees that @PeterMansbridge seems to be available. We would love to see him on Twitter.”
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It just goes to show that you have to take everything you read online with a grain of salt.
You know, I’ve never laughed harder at an @reply on Twitter before…and I’m not sure there is any risk of folks mistaking @petermansbridg for the real one for long; speaking of which I hope the real Peter Mansbridge sees that @PeterMansbridge seems to be available. We would love to see him on Twitter.
Twitter seems to give users a lot of opportunity for critical thinking. BTW, my personal favorite and openly fake Twit is @FakeSteveHarper
“All parody aside, there is some risk to these kinds of phony accounts, especially when they are being used to write to real people. The fake Mansbridge account includes one reply to Ian Capstick, a communications consultant and blogger in Ottawa. The post reads “your bio pics are dreamy. who did them? i need some done.”"
This is ludicrous, what possible risk is posed? The risk of Ian, or some other journalist, believing this was the real Mansbridge and publishing an article that makes him look like an ass? If he accepted that everyone online was who they appear to be – despite espeically despite an obvious parody – then he deserves to look like an ass.
Tonight on The National: Twitter = RISKY BUSINESS
Twitter needs a boltgun to the head.
It’s the perfect example of the horrors of a post-nerd Interweb. It that spreads panic and not information, it provides pseudonymity instead of anonymity, it breaks the basic architecture of the web with the abomination that is the short link, and it’s rapidly becoming nothing more than a swarm of marketers marketing themselves to each other. (I long for the days when a personal brand was something you reflexively clicked away from on BME.) It’s not self-sustaining and never will be. It would be a tulip market, if tulips were hideous and ungrammatical wodges of self-involved nonsense.
This is why you all can’t be left alone with computers. You make things like Twitter and waste VC money pretending it has a future.
the risk is that a news anchor that has built a career on a reputation for credibility, truth and objectivity would be parodied in such a way as to erode that or confuse people.
If parody is a problem, then you should run upstairs and tell Mercer and 22 Minutes that they’re off the air. Actual impersonation would be a different story, mind you.
Mercer and 22 Minutes cast members are not news anchors. they’re comedians.
Yeah, comedians who do an awful lot of parody is my point.
oh. I see.
“Twitters 15 minutes are up. It’s the CB radio of the 2000′s”
-Alex Frame
WOW. I thought I was following the real Peter Mansbridge whose news we watch regularly. I was also surprised at his weird sense of humour. Please ask the real Peter to tweet and redeem himself!
I’ve known @petermansbridg for a little while now, and he is a consummate professional. I think the CBC could learn a thing or two from this man. I also think that TV Peter Mansbridge is impersonating him.