The popular social media platform of Twitter/X has long been an avenue for many sports fans to receive information from insiders of a particular sport. But unfortunately, it has been increasingly difficult for fans to tell the difference between accurate information from actual insiders, and incorrect information from insider impersonators.
A blue checkmark for Twitter/X users used to give sources credibility when it came to reporting on some of the biggest news in sports. Now, users can pay for a subscription to Twitter Blue, which will give them the same verified checkmark as established journalists after changes to the platform by Twitter/X CFO Elon Musk.
This can obviously lead to several instances of misinformation being spread to the mass public quite easily, which we have seen on several different occasions.
This fake post from an account posing as Adam Schefter was up for six hours and surpassed 2 million views.
The user was just suspended. pic.twitter.com/NeVf5TtBKl
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) December 21, 2023
The rules of the platform very clearly state that both “impersonation” and “deceptive identities” are a violation of their site policy. Unfortunately, the platform has done very little about actually enforcing this, as there are perhaps more impersonators of popular sports insiders as ever.
Front Office Sports published a recent article on the topic of the impersonators of sports reporters on Twitter/X, detailing that they have found “more than 30 accounts” that have created entire personas that appear to be legitimate sources to the naked eye thanks to the use of either A.I.-generated photos or photos of people outside of the journalism realm as their profile picture.
An example of this is from an account by the name of Wesley Steinberg, a parody insider account that uses a profile picture taken from a lawyer in California, according to Front Office Sports.
Internally the #Giants have accepted defeat on QB Daniel Jones.
Executives had hoped he would hit a Ryan Tannehill ceiling when he was extended, but now their hopes rest on finding a replacement QB in the draft.
— Wesley Steinberg (@WesSteinberg) February 21, 2024
FOS reached out to the owner of the Wesley Steinberg account, who detailed that he got the photo with no connection to the lawyer it’s of.
“A friend sent it to me after googling ‘guy in suit,'” said the account owner, via FOS.
“Steinberg” has been cited by several NFL media members, including Emmanuel Acho of Fox Sports. Acho used the account as his source for a recent TikTok post based on a tweet about potential No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft Caleb Williams. He’s since deleted that video.
https://twitter.com/SmokedByHyatt/status/1745975712970899826?s=20
Despite all these issues with verification and misinformation on Twitter/X, it still remains the top platform in terms of reporting from insiders across sports.
This obviously begs the question. Will Twitter/X be the platform of the future for sports reporting? Or will another platform emerge that makes it much more difficult for the average user to spread misformation more readily?
Only time will tell. But it sure seems like Twitter/X is pretty set in their ways in terms of their current product. FOS reached out for a comment on their article, and didn’t receive a response, instead getting an automated reply saying to “check back later”.
