🏈 Alabama pushes to protect Amari Cooper's online reputation as notorious Twitter impostor fools...

[BAMANEWSBOT]

The battle to protect star wide receiver Amari Cooper'sonline reputation waged on Friday, as Alabama once again sought to remove an impostor Twitter account that boasts more than 48,000 followers.

The fake account, which carries the handle @AmariCooper, sent out a flurry of tweets -- many of which contained profane language -- late Thursday and throughout the day Friday. Some were re-tweeted more than 600 times.

One caught the eye of Yahoo! Sports' "Dr. Saturday" blog, which published a post headlined "Alabama's Amari Cooper calls himself the best receiver in the country." The article and tweet linking to it were both deleted within 30 minutes.

Within an hour, the impostor account did not exist.

Only Alabama's been through this before. Perhaps now it will finally receive some closure in its latest attempt to provide the Internet with a clear picture of who is the "real" Cooper.

The real Cooper's account carries the handle @AmariCooper9. As of 4 p.m., he boasted 12,900+ followers. His avatar featured a photoshopped image of Cooper lined up next to the Looney Tunes' The Road Runner and Speedy Gonzales with the caption "I'll take Amari...." at the bottom.

He's largely ignored the fake account's activities but responded twice in the last 24 hours.





An Alabama spokesman told AL.com on Friday that the school hoped to have Cooper's account "verified" in the near future. A verified account features a white check mark inside a blue badge placed next to the user's name on their profile page. Essentially, the badge signifies that the account is authentic.

Twitter takes its verified accounts seriously. It devotes an entire page to "frequently asked questions" about verified accounts and explains how one goes about obtaining the magical blue badge. It takes more than being famous or having a lot of followers to receive verification.

Very few college athletes are verified, though Cooper would not be the first Alabama player, as quarterback AJ McCarron received his blue badge near the end of his college career. Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, who boasts 149,000 followers, is also verified.

The process of having an impostor account removed, as Alabama has learned, is more complex. Twitter offers a troubleshooting option in its Help Center that asks a series of questions and allows the user to submit a request. Friends and fans of Cooper can also request it on his behalf.

Alabama made similar attempts after January's Sugar Bowl loss to Oklahoma when numerous media outlets aggregated tweets from the fake account and reported that they came from the real Cooper.



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[JoshB]

This stuff is just gonna keep happening to. Rather then just confirming if that was actually Coop's twitter the idiot at Yahoo just goes ahead and publishes it smh I think there was a fake TJ Yeldon twitter there for awhile so TJ made a real one to let ppl know.

 

[sean]

and people wonder why i don't like social media sites like facebook or twitter.

 

[TerryP]

and people wonder why i don't like social media sites like facebook or twitter.

The actions of a few makes you dislike the whole?

I don't "do facebook." I've managed, without difficulty at all, to keep in contact with friends without their interface. However, in some situations, it's a useful site. As one example, using their messenger service on my cell phone is an easy way to communicate with some people. I keep track of a few radio shows' content via what they post on their FB page.

Twitter is an instant stream of information. Some wrong, but more than often it's an easy way to keep track of different stories—around things like the athletic department at UA.

This situation with Amari is one in what, 100,000? Or more?

It's certainly an indictment on the individual posing as Amari. I don't see it as an indictment on the medium. I've seen suggestions of who is responsible for this with Coop; same two brothers who have been trolling sites for years. They are fans of a rival school. Yet, I don't see it as an indictment on that school's fan base.

Just my opinion @sk33tr ...

 

[sean]

The actions of a few makes you dislike the whole?

I don't "do facebook." I've managed, without difficulty at all, to keep in contact with friends without their interface. However, in some situations, it's a useful site. As one example, using their messenger service on my cell phone is an easy way to communicate with some people. I keep track of a few radio shows' content via what they post on their FB page.

Twitter is an instant stream of information. Some wrong, but more than often it's an easy way to keep track of different stories—around things like the athletic department at UA.

This situation with Amari is one in what, 100,000? Or more?

It's certainly an indictment on the individual posing as Amari. I don't see it as an indictment on the medium. I've seen suggestions of who is responsible for this with Coop; same two brothers who have been trolling sites for years. They are fans of a rival school. Yet, I don't see it as an indictment on that school's fan base.

Just my opinion @sk33tr ...

i've just never seen the need for either of them. i've survived this long without either and i'll continue to do so.

i've actually people look at me like i'm sort of alien when i tell them i don't do facebook or twitter. it's like i'm some sort of outcast or something because i don't follow along with everyone else.

also, too many times people rely solely on facebook or twitter for their news or what's going on in the world; or even to tell others something that might be important.

like my cousin who put something, that was pretty important, on facebook.....only.....about another family member. when i found out after someone else told me, i asked them why they didn't call me about it. they said, "i put it on facebook so everyone could know." well, not everyone is on facebook.

plus, i don't need that much useless information all the time. i get emails, that's enough.

 

[ElephantStomp]

I think social media is excellent and a great medium for information and for staying connected with people or businesses, but just like everything else there is some bad to it.

 

[TerryP]

i've just never seen the need for either of them. i've survived this long without either and i'll continue to do so.

i've actually people look at me like i'm sort of alien when i tell them i don't do facebook or twitter. it's like i'm some sort of outcast or something because i don't follow along with everyone else.

also, too many times people rely solely on facebook or twitter for their news or what's going on in the world; or even to tell others something that might be important.

like my cousin who put something, that was pretty important, on facebook.....only.....about another family member. when i found out after someone else told me, i asked them why they didn't call me about it. they said, "i put it on facebook so everyone could know." well, not everyone is on facebook.

plus, i don't need that much useless information all the time. i get emails, that's enough.

Oh, I get it.

Perhaps this is a bad analogy. It's the first one that comes to mind though.

I can recall people talking about different avenues of entertainment as being bad. As example, some will have a very dissenting view on a certain genre of television and based on a few shows consider the whole medium as bad. FOX News is probably a good example here. So many look at a handful of opinion shows and from those judge the entire news network. Some look at Cinemax and criticize their content because they have "skin flicks" series in the early AM but don't give equal weight to series like "Banshee." They'll look at HBO and say "it's a waste of 10 bucks a month" but head to the theatre and spend the same amount on one movie.

There's no doubt too often people rely on these avenues of information dissemination as their only source for news and information. Isn't that a defining statement on them?

On the other hand, if you take something like the "Today's News" forum here, where else can you catch just about every news item related to Alabama sports and do so in a matter of just a few minutes.

It's all in what you make of it, right?

 

[TerryP]

@sk33tr How's this for irony? :rolf:

 

[mhardiman]

I'm with you sketter; I'm not putting my life story on the internet for all to read. I don't have a facebook account I do have a twitter account that I do not use; I don't like its format and it's hard to follow, but the biggest gripe I have about them is that I do like forums and forums are typically structured in a way that is easy to follow and navigate and less personal. Facebook and Twitter have killed forum traffic.

 

[PhillyGirl]

@sk33tr How's this for irony? :rolf:

:rolf: too funny! My Facebook was blowing up with those long-winded posts ..

 

[JoshB]

@TerryP no comment at your Fox News example...