CONCERNS have been raised over the ability to impersonate politicians on an emerging social media platform.
Robert Jenrick’s team have said they will report an imposter Bluesky account to the site’s administrators after another pretending to be Kemi Badenoch revealed itself to be fake.
Bluesky’s popularity rose after Elon Musk’s Twitter/X takeover and spiked immediately after Donald Trump’s re-election as US president.
The account has copied Jenrick’s tweets word for word since being set up on Sunday and had 88 followers at time of writing.
Another account impersonating Badenoch (below), who pipped Jenrick to the Conservative top job earlier this month, revealed on Monday it was fraudulent.
In a post, the fake Badenoch said: “So the joke’s up this isn’t Kemi Badenoch’s [account] her handle was free so I took it.
“I was originally going to make fun of her when it was revealed.”
In an earlier post, the fake Jenrick account said: “Both the Conservatives and Labour need to quickly claim all their MPs’ names on Bluesky - I am worried it could get messy.”
Sharing the fake Badenoch reveal post, the account added: “At least whoever was running the account did not post anything damaging to Kemi Badenoch’s image – this time.
“I highly doubt that this will be the last time something like this occurs. [Bluesky] must improve their verification for public figures ASAP.”
One Bluesky user said: "This place badly needs some sort of verification for public figures if it's going to fulfil its potential."
Another added: "Hopefully the [verification] system on [Bluesky] should help highlight fake accounts, but there does need to be an 'easy-spot' indicator such as either the colour of the name on verified accounts, or a blue-tick equivalent. Parodies are fine, but they need separating from real ones."
Musk was previously criticised for overhauling Twitter/X's system of verification, which aimed to ensure that people were unable to impersonate major public figures.
He introduced a system where people were able to buy "blue ticks", the symbol of a verified account, even if they were not public figures.
Bluesky was approached for comment.
