An online troll has used Twitter's paid for advertising service to impersonate Collective Shout activist Caitlin Roper.
The account set up late Wednesday night, sent out a string of hateful and abusive tweets alongside graphic photos. The tweets appeared as 'promoted tweets' appearing in the twitter feeds of those targeted by the ad campaign.
A 4chan user has claimed responsibility for the hate campaign:
"Remember when I told you that I was gonna use Twitter Ads to send out promoted Tweets telling trannies to kill themselves?
Well, guess what? I just did it.
With any luck, I managed to actually get a few trannies to remove themselves from the gene pool today.
All in a day's work.
BTW, in my trolling, I used the name and image of Caitlin Roper, an Ausfailian feminazi who is involved in all sorts of censorship campaigns. She was the one who started the campaign to get GTA V banned from Ausfailia. Make sure to harass this feminazi whore for "promoting transphobia". (sic)
Many were quick to alert Caitlin and other twitter users to the sham account and reported it to Twitter.
Hi friends, someone has created a Twitter account impersonating me and tweeting hateful comments. Account suspended, thanks for your help x
— Caitlin Roper (@caitlin_roper) May 20, 2015
The fake account was suspended with an hour but the real Caitlin Roper continues to receive a barrage of abuse from those apparently not aware of the impersonation.
This is not the first time Caitlin has been impersonated online. Late last year a clone account was set up and sent out tweets offering sexual services. Caitlin wrote about the experience for the Guardian.
“As a vocal feminist activist, I’ve been targeted in various ways, with threats of rape and violence, and by impersonation. Last year a man made a copy of my twitter profile, copying my picture and bio info, and he began tweeting as me offering sex to men on the internet. I wrote about it for The Guardian.
“Last time it took several hours for Twitter to remove the account, after I had sent them a copy of my photo ID. I was relieved that they acted quickly here, I think within about an hour.
“I do have to wonder how it is that this kind of tweet was able to be promoted.”
@caitlin_roper I hope I'm one of a thousand messages like this and I get lost in that shuffle but I am so incredibly sorry for all of this.
— fight apathy or dont (@rowast) May 20, 2015
@caitlin_roper if it was paid tweet, why did Twitter ok such vileness and not vette what was written? This makes me so angry. Hope you're ok
— Tracey Kent (@TraceyKent) May 20, 2015
Trolls paid for Twitter's promoted tweets service to spread anti-trans message
Troll uses Twitter adverts to urge transgender people to kill themselves
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