Feed is not genuine despite briefly having 'tick' badge, News International confirms – but Rupert Murdoch account is real
If the news that Wendi Deng had joined her husband Rupert Murdoch on Twitter and promptly engaged in flirtatious banter with the likes of Ricky Gervais seemed too good to be true, that's because it was.
Despite an official verified "tick" badge from the social networking service – now rescinded – a News International spokeswoman in London confirmed on Tuesday that the @Wendi_Deng Twitter account was fake, although the @rupertmurdoch account is genuine.
Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, joined Twitter on 31 December, with the fake Deng account launching the following day.
She apparently chatted with celebrities including Gervais, tweeting "i think you look HOT ricky!!! (sssh dont tell @rupertmurdoch!)", and Kim Kardashian ("kim!!! agreed! rupert and i set a lot of goals for ourselves all through last yr!"), but the account holder's cover was blown on Tuesday when Twitter said it was not authentic.
"We don't comment on our verification process but can confirm that the @wendi_deng account was mistakenly verified for a short period of time. We apologise for the confusion this caused," Twitter said in a statement.
Confusion over the account's authenticity was fuelled after a News International spokeswoman said that @Wendi_Deng was genuine late on Monday to the Guardian. BBC reporter Ross Hawkins also tweeted late on Monday that "News Int say they're real".
The Guardian was among a number of news organisations which ran stories about the fake account.
However, on Tuesday the spokeswoman at News International said the company had now established that the @Wendi_Deng account was fake.
On Tuesday afternoon Hawkins tweeted: "The @Wendi_Deng twitter account is NOT genuine. The News Intl s/person who told me it was last night has just called to say she was wrong."
At this point the person behind the fake account also came clean: "Hello Twitter. As News International has finally come to their senses, it's time to confirm that yes, this is a fake account. I'm not Wendi."
The spoof account holder has tweeted more than 100 times since 1 January with the declaration that they were going to show "rupert how easy it is to follow people as he only follow 4 right now".
They also showed an immediate grasp of Twitter etiquette by using the blogging site as a window into a private life – Wendi_Deng teased her "husband" about the speed with which he gained followers – in just three days he has over 90,000 followers.
But as the owner of a fake account, they also knew what to do to give the account credibility – tweeting public figures who have been part of her husband's life including former News of the World editor Piers Morgan and Lord Sugar, both frequent tweeters.
Responding to the Guardian's queries by email, someone able to tweet on the @Wendi_Deng account said he was a British man living in London and had just set up the account for fun.
"I set up the account as a laugh, simple as that, when I was bored over the new year holiday and saw all the hype surrounding Rupert Murdoch joining Twitter," the account holder said.
"When Twitter verified it, I was completely and utterly shocked. A little nervous too, if I'm honest, about what had happened and whether it had all gone too far. I just couldn't believe they would have verified such a high profile account without checking it out, but I absolutely received no communication from Twitter to the email address I used to register. If that's their security process for high profile users, then I do think they need to rethink it urgently. On their help pages they say, interestingly, that the "verified account" system is no longer in operation, and yet here it was being used for Rupert Murdoch and his wife without, in my/Wendi's case, any checking whatsoever.
"When I got to hear that NI had called it legit too, by that stage I'd entered 'what the hell' territory and thought I'd just carry on and see where it went, seeing as Twitter had already verified it. I knew that sooner or later they'd realise what a dreadful mistake they'd made," the account holder added.
"I see there are lots of tweets saying that this account was an attempt to 'test Twitter's security' or 'make a fool of News International'. It wasn't, and I didn't dream that any of that would happen. As for the people saying that I should be ashamed for setting up a spoof account and leading people on – have they seen how many spoof accounts are out there? They're far from all admitting they're spoofs, either. In comparison, mine was comparatively mild and merely slightly jokey."
A News International spokeswoman said that she had had many conversations about the authenticity of Rupert Murdoch's account on Monday and if she confirmed the Wendi Deng fake account to be genuine late in the day, it was an accident.