In past few years, Twitter has raised itself to be the biggest platform for news and trending topics. In order to know the burning topics, we prefer to go on Twitter. 145 Million daily active users trust Twitter but due to a drawback (which is one of its features) thousands of its users are cheated. Some significant geopolitical battles have also been created by using it.  

What is the matter?

Twitter gives the facility to change your profile completely. You can change your name, bio, username, everything. Only your Twitter ID remains the same but that is not visible to the public. If you rename everything and erase your past tweets then it becomes impossible to find anything about your previous profile.

By taking advantage of this feature, Existing IDs changed themselves into a trending person to gain followers or to set their agenda(s).

Newly made fake profile vs Converted Profile:

When a fake profile is created then it takes time to build it because it doesn’t have any real time followers. So, to grow the followers one needs both strategy and luck. On the other hand when fake identities are created by changing a profile then the existing follower base remains the same. This gives these fake IDs some real time followers and also help them gain new followers quickly.

Using this technique, profiles garner thousands of followers in less time. Also, Twitter does not even give any notification if an ID has changed its username.

The possible motives behind Profile change:

There are two main possibilities why this feature is being misused:

1. To gain followers: It’s been observed that IDs are keeping their profile similar to an influencer and once they get followers, they rename it.
   
   Example #1: A Karachi based doctor converted his profile to an American girl and tweeted that she has converted to Islam. Due to the initial followers of this ID and the tweet combined gave it a boost and in few hours it gained 10K followers. Afterwards it again renamed the previous one. (Source)
   
   Example #2: After the Constable Sunita Yadav incident, an ID named @RealKomalMeena changed its username to @Sunita_Yadav123 and started tweeting as Sunita to gain followers. Due to having an existing follower base, this profile started trending and garnered more than thousands of followers and retweets. Soon afterwards the ID’s profile was changed back. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!  (Source)
   
   
2. To spread Misinformation: There are several incidents where profiles were changed in the same pattern and then used deliberately to create Geo-Political conflict.
   
   Example #1: Twitter handles impersonating Arab personalities criticize India over Islamophobia. (Source)
   
   Example #2: Pakistan’s Hubaib became Brigadier NLK Samrasinghe and created chaos. (Source)

The solution:

If Twitter starts maintaining the record of username/profile change and start providing the previous username of a handle like Facebook does then automatically this issue will be resolved. Also Twitter can send a notification to all the followers of a Twitter ID if it changes its profile.

These steps will ensure that people will not become prey to propagandas and Twitter will look more transparent .

It’s time to act.

Please sign the petition if you want to reduce fake propagandas on social media and share it to make your demand strong! Time to create a real world and stop Fakists!