BBC publishes insult via Twitter. Or does it?

Jan 26 2009

Posted by Martin as Internet

twitter.com/bbc - not what it seems

This morning I received a message on Twitter from one of the few people I follow on the messaging service that I knew before I signed up. Gary Williams (AKA Sputnik101) is a London-based charity boss, environmental activist and music fan. This morning he was shocked to discover that the BBC appeared to have responded to a complaint in a rather cheeky and inappropriate manner.

Over the weekend in the UK there has been controversy over the BBC refusing to transmit an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee asking for money to help people in Gaza affected by the recent Hamas/Israel conflict. The BBC argue that to show the appeal would imply an editorial bias against Israel. Gary didn’t like that standpoint and sent to public message to the Twitter account at www.twitter.com/BBC. This account tweets links to BBC News stories as they’re published online.

Gary’s tweet read: “@BBC You are an absolute DISGRACE for refusing to air the Disaster Emergencies Committee’s Gaza appeal: http://www.dec.org.uk/“

A little later he received a reply which read: “@sputnik101 so are you :p“.

Unsurprisingly Gary was annoyed. “If I sent the BBC an email calling them a disgrace, I wouldn’t get an email back saying I was a disgrace as well, so why are tweets different? Look at the BBC tweet feed. In between the news links, there is me being called a disgrace! Weird. It is bizzare. Clearly whoever tweets at the beeb isn’t tightly policed. But the tweetfeed is a BBC broadcast like any other!“

So, what was going on? Was it a case of someone hacking the BBC’s Twitter account? Was it a member of BBC staff being rude to a complainant (and wouldn’t the Daily Mail love that!)? A little more delving uncovered a rather less sensational, but no less worrying, answer.

Earlier today the URL linked to from the ‘BBC’ account’s profile was www.bbctwitter.co.cc. That page displays the following message: “The news published on http://www.twitter.com/BBC is syndicated content taken directly from the BBC News website vie their public RSS feed found here. The account is not operated by the BBC but is offered for your convenience so that you may receive the latest news stories from the BBC website whilst using the Twitter Service.”

So, what we had here was someone operating a feed-forwarding service for BBC News stories being cheeky to someone who thought they were complaining to the BBC. Now the situation has got more confusing as some time during today the URL on the profile has been changed to the BBC’s News homepage. There’s now no way to know that twitter.com/BBC is unofficial. When you add in the fact that the page uses BBC News artwork things get even more confusing for people who think they’re following an official feed.

If the operators of this feed were harmlessly tweeting automated links to news stories there would be no problem. However, if they’re abusing License Fee payers in the name of the BBC they’ve overstepped a line. Isn’t it time for the BBC to get in touch with Twitter and take control of an account that uses their brandname and, by rights, should be theirs?

UPDATE:

Jem Stone of the BBC has been in touch (see the comment below) to let us know that they have now contacted Twitter to (hopefully) claim the ‘BBC’ username. He’s promised to update us on progress with another comment. As a couple of other commenters point out – Twitter-squatting a valuable username like BBC gives the squatters quite a bit of power to manipulate their followers. As Tom says below, “Has the BBC been through every single tweet that came from this account to ensure that none of them have contained false financial information, links to phishing sites or any other content that didn’t come directly from the BBC newsfeed? If not, you should – quickly! If everything’s ok, you’re very, very lucky”.

UPDATE 2:

As you’ll notice from the comment below – the BBC now have taken control of the ‘BBC’ username. It’s great to see the BBC and Twitter acting quickly to resolve this issue. Let this be a lesson to other businesses and organisations – ‘own’ your brands on social networks or there may be trouble ahead. Native have screenshots from the rogue account before it was shut down here.

Bill

Screw Twitter. They stole that account.......terms of services state cannot impersonate other twitter users doesn't it? BBC wasn't a user....they were still int he dark ages and still would be if it weren't for that account!

Martin Bryant

Were you the previous operator of the 'BBC' Twitter account?

The BBC has quite a few Twitter accounts for various purposes - they just hadn't thought to register 'BBC'. As 'BBC' is a trademark they'd be very likely to win it in a court of law. Twitter recognised that and handed it to the rightful owner. Consider how much harm could have been caused if that fake account had been used for more than mildly insulting one person. As Tom states above, there are all sorts of risks. It's only right that Twitter gave it to the BBC.

Jem Stone

Further update. We've now taken back ownership of http://twitter.com/bbc/ at the BBC. At the moment we will just use it temporarily to direct users to the growing list of BBC DJs, presenters, journalists and programmes using twitter in all sorts of ways.

thanks again for highlighting this issue. btw: the original account has been deleted by Twitter.
so a few of the links above will now no longer work. Hope you took screenshots!

And thanks for the other advice about phishing and so on from other users. All appreciated.
Twitter responded to this promptly within a matter of hours btw. I'm going to DM Gary to apologise on behalf of the Beeb.

Jem Stone | http://twitter.com/jemstone/

Bill

Don't forget, it all started because he was calling the BBC a disgrace; why apologise?

Martin Bryant

Everyone has the right to disagree with the BBC and to express their opinion. He's apologising over the mix-up of them not being in control of the 'BBC' account on Twitter.

Tom

Thanks for the update Jem - well handled by Twitter and the BBC...
There are lessons to be learnt here by any brand.
Twitter squatting is the new domain squatting.
We got some of the screenshots you mentioned and blogged the story here:
http://is.gd/hHvq

Carl Morris

If the operators of this feed were harmlessly tweeting automated links to news stories there would be no problem.

I would think there are already 3 problems, before the abusive reply to @sputnik101 took place.

If the BBC are complaining to Twitter, that's good. But I think these are problems in general for any company suffering from rogue representation online.

1. Since October 2008 (at least, because that's the earliest tweet I found), people have been reading and @ replying assuming they were reaching the BBC. If you run a Twitter search for bbc, you can read them. So whoever is squatting on the name BBC is depriving the corporation of the opportunity to listen and respond to these people. Some people may be getting the impression that the BBC is ignoring their comments.

2. In this particular case, the profile is appropriating BBC graphics on a shoddy tiled background undoing some of the perception of quality normally associated with the BBC.

3. There really is no guarantee in examples of Twitter squatting that the stream will remain harmless. If the reply to @sputnik101 had not taken place, would the normally tech-savvy BBC have just ignored it? As Twitter gains in popularity, the account could have gathered 10,000 followers. Or 50,000. Any unscrupulous squatter could have waited before tweeting ANYTHING at any time. The fact that this example involved Gaza should be particularly concerning for the BBC - a sensitive topic on which they've taken great pains to attempt to be seen as neutral.

I think we will see more examples of such confusion if companies are lax about these deceptions. The consequences may not be so benign. How long before we see financial and other phishing scams being attempted?

Thanks for insightful post.

Tom

Has the BBC been through every single tweet that came from this account to ensure that none of them have contained false financial information, links to phishing sites or any other content that didn't come directly from the BBC newsfeed?

If not, you should - quickly!
If everything's ok, you're very, very lucky.

Jem Stone

"If the operators of this feed were harmlessly tweeting automated links to news stories there would be no problem. However, if they’re abusing License Fee payers in the name of the BBC they’ve overstepped a line. Isn’t it time for the BBC to get in touch with Twitter and take control of an account that uses their brandname and, by rights, should be theirs?"

Well quite. And we have. Still waiting to hear . I will report back here.

Jem Stone (BBC)

yenra

Minus the insult (so far), this sounds like something that is happening with http://twitter.com/TheWhiteHouse on Twitter. Even though the word "unofficial" is now in the profile, one could easily imagine a false report being injected into this feed that could have dramatic effect on the fifteen thousand people who follow it and beyond as it would be retweeted. Both the BBC and the White House should take control of the accounts that use their names. The current risk is too great.

Christine Morris

This is worrying, and hopefully the registered names or authorities will begin to take notice. As you mention it is someone using their name, and logo, and yet no affiliation with them. Bad representation of the company. They have to start to take this stuff more seriously.

Or - maybe the reverse will happen, that we must assume people are not who they say they are, and some sort of moderation will happen where you can prove it... Why can't Pepsi open an account called Coke, and post insults or bad rumours about the company? How will this be dealt with.

Interesting topic.

Martin Bryant

It's a minefield for sure. The good news is that after publishing this I DMed BBC journalist Darren Waters who tweeted back to me: "It's not our Twitter feed. I'm following up with my bosses". I imagine this should get the problem sorted. The power of Twitter and blogging in action! :)

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