LONDON: Twitter admitted on Tuesday that the platform had accidentally given a fake account for renowned author and novelist Cormac McCarthy a blue tick marking it as a “verified user.”
The account, under the misspelled name “CormacMcCrthy,” was registered in 2018 and was recently tweeting about kombucha and SoundCloud for thousands of followers on the platform.
Both the author’s agent and publisher confirmed that McCarthy has never signed up for Twitter.
A spokesperson for Twitter said: “The account referenced was verified by mistake and that has since been reversed. The account will also be required to adhere to Twitter’s parody, news feed, commentary, and fan account policy.”
This is the second time Twitter has verified a fake account supposedly belonging to McCarthy; the first time was in 2012.
The fake account of 2012 was not only verifed, but also welcomed by Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey.
In order to qualify for verification, Twitter users must upload an ID to authenticate their identity or show that an official website links directly to their account.
However, the fake account “CormacMcCrthy” did neither, and Twitter verified the account anyway following a viral tweet that gained more than 122 thousand likes.
Twitter restarted its verification process in May after halting it for several years to reassess how the process works.
Verification was initially introduced to combat identity theft on the platform and has since grown to include an array of special features for those carrying a blue tick.
Features include access to additional tools for notifications, priority for algorithmic filters and moderation, and a few or no adverts on the site.
The process was paused in 2017 and restarted in May 2021, only to be paused again a week later because of a flood of requests for verification.
