Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng. The fake Wendi chastised the media mogul over his tweets. Picture: AP Source: AFP
- Twitter "mistakenly verified" Deng's account as genuine
- Account owner tweets to reveal it had been a hoax
- News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch joins Twitter
WENDI Deng's verified Twitter account has turned out to be bogus, after someone else admitted to posing as Rupert Murdoch's wife on the microblogging site.
"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 anonymous voice behind @Wendi_Deng said.
It appeared the account was set up on New Year's Day, a day after the global media tycoon made his Twitter debut, according to a spokesman for News Corp, which owns news.com.au.
"Joining my husband @rupertmurdoch in our new digital adventure on Twitter," read the imposter's profile, alongside a photo of the smiling Murdochs at a public function.
The fake Ms Deng then went on to interact with her followers, chatting to Kim Kardashian, indulging in some flirtatious banter with comedian Ricky Gervais and even urging her husband to remove a tweet about the British having too many holidays for a broke country - which he did.
The imposter interacted with comedian Ricky Gervais, Kim Kardashian, and Rupert Murdoch before revealing the account was a fake.
Source: news.com.au
"To those of you who kept maintaining the account was fake, even after being verified, good on you for being suspicious," @Wendi_Deng stated in a lively exchange with his or her nearly 10,000 followers.
"Above all, this was a bit of fun. If you don't think it was, then you'd better ask Twitter to remove every other spoof account too."
Twitter says it grants "a Verified Badge" to well-known users, such as celebrities, once it has established their authenticity.
In this instance, Twitter admits it had "mistakenly verified" the Wendi Deng account as genuine for a short time.
Twitter spokeswoman Rachel Bremer said the company apologised for the confusion.
News International spokeswoman Daisy Dunlop said while the Wendi Deng account was fake, the Twitter account opened over the New Year's weekend by News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch was genuine.
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