John Major’s wife takes on Twitter impersonator
By politics.co.uk staff
A Twitter account purporting to be by Dame Norma Major has been shut down, reportedly due to her own efforts.
The @normamajor account on Twitter has now been shut down and previous tweets are impossible to access.
“Dame Norma never has, or ever will, Tweet,” a spokesman for Sir John Major’s wife told the Telegraph.
The account was reportedly shut down after she took steps to silence it.
The move comes as public figures struggle against online impersonators who often trick journalists into assuming their tweets are authentic.
Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has been struggling against an online impersonator commenting on events such as the death of Amy Winehouse, despite already managing to shut down one false account in the run-up to the general election.
Channel 4 News presenter John Snow was forced to apologise after he tweeted that CNN presenter and former Mirror editor Piers Morgan had stepped down. He tweeted the news after reading a message from a source claiming to be a former News of the World employee.
Twitter has a genuine user guarantee for many celebrities and public figures but many authentic accounts do not have the stamp.
Many impersonators are careful to stay just within the limits of believability, making assumptions about their authenticity difficult.
