IMPOSTOR
The President and the Birds of Play
arindam
arindam
06 Dec, 2013
A few days ago, Twitter gained a new entrant.
A few days ago, Twitter gained a new entrant. With a mug shot of himself superimposed on a photograph of the Rashtrapati Bhawan, along with the tag of ‘official account’, India’s President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee had arrived. Within minutes, the account whipped up thousands of followers. Sundry personalities from Barkha Dutt to Kabir Bedi welcomed him, with the latter even expressing the wish that the President tweet himself and not delegate the job to someone else. Except the President was nowhere near Twitter, but in the faraway Northeast, inaugurating Nagaland’s Hornbill Festival. The account turned out to be fake, and was disabled immediately. This, however, did not register with the Twitter account of news portal, Bengal Newz. After the account was blocked, the portal reported with alacrity —‘Prez #PranabMukherjee’s newly opened Twitter account @POIndia facing some internal server error just after 2 tweets!’
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