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Unsuck DC Metro undertook a yeoman's task this week uncovering the news that, just like many celebrities, WMATA has its share of imposters on Twitter. The blog reported on Wednesday that they were contacted by WMATA spokesman Ronald A. Holzer Jr. after publishing a post which questioned a cryptic tweet about an escalator disruption at the Ballston station. The post's writer was unaware that the cut-off message was coming from an unauthorized twitter account -- WMATA's official presence on Twitter is located at the username "metroopensdoors"; the blog had been pulling news from the username "wmata".
They aren't alone: "wmata" has a nearly two-to-one advantage in followers over the official WMATA account.
"It struck us as cavalier [that Metro] wouldn't care that someone is using their brand," said the blog's owner, who asked to be referred to as Unsuckdcmetro. "We can't imagine Coke allowing someone to use its brand so freely. I bet [Coke have] snatched up every possible Twitter account that could possibly be associated with Coke."
Attempts to contact the proprietor of "wmata" went unreturned.
The transit agency said that since "wmata" is simply rebroadcasting the twitter feed of "metroopensdoors," they are content to let it be. But for those of us who are active in the twitterscape, it's obvious how such a laissez-faire philosophy could cause problems -- especially for an organization who depends on the format to relay potentially vital service information (unlike some of us, who use Twitter to disseminate important watering hole location information). What would happen if the the person or persons behind the popular alternate feeds began interjecting personal tweets alongside the official Metro dispatches? What about the risks when something unexpected happens and "wmata" suggests something that conflicts with what WMATA actually wants?
Or as Unsuckdcmetro puts it, "a simple 'bomb on Orange Line' from @wmata could really cause massive problems."
It's a pertinent reminder that even though its popularity is growing exponentially, Twitter is still a wild west of sorts -- one must vet their sources of information just as they would with any other sort of social networking service.
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And you wonder why 'old timers', old media, govt. lawers, etc. are cautious of new technologies such as twitter. The more credence you give these sites to be an 'official' channel of information, the more at risk you are of being spoofed or compromised. This is something the web 2.0 flagwavers never have to admit. They benefit from increased reliance on these sites, but bear none of the risks.
The whole rise of Twiter in my mind was largely fueled by how many media outlets jumped on board so quickly. It was almost like they thought they were slow to the Facebook/MySpace party, so they were determined not to miss this one. Then everyone under the sub jumped on board, whether they understand what they are using or not. Perfet example: naming their feed after a tagline that nobody cares about instead of their opganization name. Whoops!
Great post, and good job Unsuck DC Metro for figuring out that WMATA doesn't care about its brand. Not like it's a great brand to begin with, but...
Metro should change its main Twitter acct name and make sure it has all related names accounted for. Scary to think what might happen.
@metroopensdoorsbutnotalwaysontherightsideofthetrain
This is laughable. Concern trolling over brandnames is the antithesis of the free-for-all spirit of the internet. You desire information now, then assume a high degree of unreliability, but don't blame DC Metro for not worrying enough about their twitter name.
Aaron Morrissey/DCist
We read your post about our Twitter account.
We appreciate your assistance in clarifying any confusion between other twitter accounts and the official transit agency account.
Metro is very concerned about its brand, and I’d like to share with you what we said to “unsuckdcmetro,” and would have told you if you’d called our Public Relations office. We told “unsuckdcmetro” that according to Twitter terms of service, we would remove any Twitter accounts that become a problem. Several of the other Twitter accounts with WMATA information have more followers than @Metroopensdoors does so we’ve decided not to take action at this time.
Social media is a new and growing communication tool, and we view it as something that should be nurtured, rather than stifled. We would have expected DCist to understand our intent and champion it. Right now, these other accounts haven’t been a problem and hopefully as people read your blog and find that @wmata is not the official Metro account, they’ll switch over to @Metroopensdoors.
According to Twitter’s terms of service, it is a violation to name squat, so as one of your comments indicated, we would not be able to grab every possible twitter account with “wmata” or “metro” in it unless we populated each. We don’t want to place the same information on a bunch of differently named accounts. In addition to squatting, Twitter terms of service also speak to impersonation, brand and trademark violations and provide us recourse for each. As we said, if this becomes a problem, we’ll take appropriate action.
In our attempt to spread our message to as many people in as many formats as possible, WMATA, like many, is using social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and YouTube to achieve that goal, but your final comment is very important -“one must vet their sources of information just as they would with any other sort of social networking service.” To that end, we provide the free service e-Alerts via our website, www.metroopensdoors.com which allows our customers even more customization than Twitter, with the assurance that the messages are directly from Metro.
So you'd remove a squatter AFTER they caused trouble? That doesn't make any sense at all. It also doesn't make any sense that you don't want the @wmata to begin with.