On Monday, several tweets, allegedly from Donald Trump's handle, were congratulating Yodi Adityanath.
While these were parodies and spoofs, a number of individuals were confused by a blue tick alongside President Trump's name. Some of them even took a potshot at the media, not realising that the tweets were fake.
We did a background check on the source of the tweets. While there are several sites that help you prepare fake tweets, which are used by ad agencies while they create concepts for clients, a specific one called FakeTrumpTweets enables users to tweet as the President of the United States. It even has the blue tick.
While these fake tweets cannot be posted on Trump's timeline, screen shots of the fake tweet circulate on social media and at some point becomes lost in grapevine and is assumed genuine by thousands of people on social media.
A fake tweet generated by DNA on the FakeTrumpTweet site
While this falls under the fake news zone, web sites such as these, which are intended at fun and humour, fall in the wrong hands. Imagine someone writing a tweet as a world leader and calls for war. Now, imagine what happens if a tweet like that circulates on social media. While a few of us actually search for the source of the tweet, many - mediapersons included - will assume that the tweet is genuine and then a story may get published.
In an earlier article, DNA debunked a rumour that was circulated on WhatsApp on how the Shivaji memorial was a masterstroke by the BJP government because it was a solar panel and a device to notify the government about potential terrorist attacks. Now imagine the WhatsApp copy actually circulating on a fake twitter account under the Prime Minister's name and with the blue tick?
In this era of (mis)information overload, maybe we leave having fun through memes and gifs, and avoid using fake Twitter generators in case the fun turns into something like a teen prank that went horribly wrong.
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