Someone in Twitter's graphics department has some 'splaining to do. Yesterday Twitter announced a full release of a product that allows tv advertisers to follow the reach their ads have online. In the announcement, they included a mockup of the product featuring real tweets from real people about a commercial. According to VentureBeat on July 24, that's where the problem lies. The tweets that were featured endorsing Barista Bar were also fake tweets, but they use real Twitter profiles and pictures.
SF Gate originally reported on the tweets. It was noticed that none of these tweets were showing up on each user’s timeline. According to Twitter’s ad, Neil Gottlieb had said, “What is the song in the new @baristabar commercial? I love it!” Of course, he never said anything like that, as Barista Bar is not a real company and the website on the Twitter page links to a bogus website.
If Twitter would make a point of using a fake company to endorse its products, why would it think it would be okay to use real pictures and Twitter accounts of actual people? While this is a small issue overall, the consequences of using people who are unknowingly supporting your product are huge.
William Mazeo, who admitted to SF Gate's Jeff Elder he isn’t a native English speaker and has "never used the word ‘fancy’” before, referring to the tweet that he 'created' according to the Twitter ad, expressed his anger over the incident.
@TwitterAds -_-" don't do this again.
— William Mazeo (@WilliamMazeo) July 23, 2013
Gottlieb also asked for answers as to how this happened. Unsatisfied with their response, Gottlieb responded to SF Gate's Jeff Elder:
@JeffElder totally unacceptable tactic they employed and response. Not an adequate accountability statement in my view @twitter
— Neil Gottlieb (@Neil_Gottlieb) July 24, 2013
Twitter called it “confusion” in their apologies to the users. The old tweets in the ad have since been replaced with tweets from employees at Twitter. Is this a forgivable mistake or should Twitter be held more accountable for what it does with its users' likeness?
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/twitter-uses-real-user-names-photos-without-permission-to-promote-new-product?cid=roadrunner