Impersonation in Social Media

What is impersonation? Impersonation is when a person identifies themselves as someone they are not. False personation is a crime in the United States and can become a second-degree impersonation when further crimes are committed.

The main purpose of impersonation is to mimic an identity, in order to con victims into believing in their fake identity. Not only does this process harm tricked victims it also damages the reputations of the copied persona or brand.

A while ago, one of my closest friend’s photos got reposted and used by an unknown Twitter user. The user claimed the photos of my friend to be hers and was actively seeking sexual intercourse online. She impersonated my friend and commented on hashtags such as, but not limited to,  #sex, #love, #malaysian, #hitmeup, and many more sexual ones that I cannot state in this article due to school restrictions and the high degree of inappropriateness. Other accounts would compliment her and the photos, often including highly sexual claims because of the already existing inappropriate hashtags and captions.

My initial instinct was to simply report the account for identifying as someone else, but after some calm thoughts, believed simply reporting the account is going to be useless. The user could simply open up a new account under another email or phone number on Twitter and repost the same pictures of my friend, and reporting would not compensate for the mental distress and harm my friend received from the shock. Reposting photos you believe are aesthetically pleasing is perfectly fine, as long as you give credit and acknowledge that person, with consent. However, in this case, the unidentified user simply screenshotted pictures from my friend’s Instagram and screen recorded her Instagram stories’ videos and used it to her own benefit. The impersonation is what infuriated the victim, me, and her other friends.

This leads to the question of safety in the various social media platforms. Issues such as cyberbullying have been raised and enforced on social media, with the platforms automatically restricting an account’s action if they sense any harm being conducted. However, impersonation has never been properly addressed as a type of danger in social media—at least I have not encountered anyone teaching lessons regarding impersonation and how it is done through social media platforms.

My friend is definitely not the sole victim of impersonation; there are thousands and millions of users being impersonated by others on various social media platforms. The issue of impersonation, regarding the humiliation, offense, and insult victims receive, becomes worse when the perpetrators are owners of “sex” accounts on social media platforms, specifically Tumblr and Twitter. Tumblr has been removed from the App Store due to the high inappropriate posts users could post without censorship a few years ago, and Twitter has been put under the spotlight by various online news publications for its lack of censorship in posts.

On top of the psychological damages impersonation can enforce onto victims, these fake accounts threaten the authenticity of major and significant events such as the presidential votings. Voting impersonation causes eligible voters to vote more than once, or those who are ineligible to participate in the elections.

Many social media platforms have attempted to resolve issues regarding impersonation through verifying accounts. Celebrities, influencers, and brands have all been verified by major social media applications, but these platforms fail to realize the possibility of perpetrators copying unknown, every-day users.

If you see any account, or anyone, conducting impersonation, remember to report the account and give as many details and information as possible to the platform to ensure the account becomes banned.