Did you hear or see that LeBron James asked the Los Angeles Lakers to trade him?
Such a request would be at least somewhat understandable, given they missed the play-in tournament last season and have started 2-8 this season.
Oh, wait. It wasn’t actually him.
A Twitter user attempting to masquerade as James’ official account posted a tweet claiming the four-time MVP had requested a trade, and for a minute, the social media universe was in an uproar.
But once it was established that the tweet didn’t come from James himself, everyone settled down, other than that embarrassing feeling of being duped by a fake account.
Via Sportsnaut:
There has been an epidemic of fake accounts purporting to be those of celebrities since billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter and announced changes to how the company verifies accounts.
Such fake accounts, including the one that was responsible for the tweet above, have been suspended.
Musk himself was impersonated by comedian Kathy Griffin, and her account was quickly suspended by the real Musk.
