USAToday: Twitter hell: Bishop victim of fake account

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay is taking action to shut down a fake Twitter account for Bishop David Ricken.

Matthew Livingstone, the social communications director for the diocese, said Tuesday that diocesan officials are trying to get the impostor account removed from Twitter. They also are warning Twitter users about the fraudulent account, and that at least one user reported an attempt to solicit money.

“From the Diocese of Green Bay account, I will be direct tweeting each of the followers of the false account just to let them know that they are following someone that’s not the bishop and let them know what the bishop’s real account is,” Livingstone said.

Ricken’s Twitter account, @BpDavidRicken, was created in February 2013. He uses it almost daily to share uplifting messages and interact with nearly 3,000 followers.

The false account, which appears to have started during the weekend and had 40 followers as of Tuesday afternoon, has a similar username of @BpDavid_Ricken. The only difference between the handles is the underscore included between Ricken’s first and last names for the impostor account.
continue at USA Today

2 comments:

James K Savonarola said...

ipso facto your reporting led to a national report.... way to go Matt!

Badger Catholic said...

Haha, seriously whoever it was private messaged me on Twitter and that's when I knew something was not right. I didn't realize it was a different account up until that point.