How Sheffield politicians are falling victim to parody Twitter accounts set up in their names

The accounts have genuine photos of the politicians and while some tweets are jokes, they are interwoven with retweets of authentic accounts which means some people are being duped.

New Council Leader Terry Fox is one of the prank victims. A twitter account in his name was created in January 2020 but more people started noticing it when he became Leader of Sheffield Labour Group a fortnight ago.

The bio says “expert in Latin; optimum parodiam” – a parody account – but it’s still confusing many people.

Coun Fox has taken it in good humour and laughed: “One thing I’ve learnt from them is I’m not very photogenic. They could have used better pictures.”

Nando’s, with its 1.3m followers, responded to a tweet from the fake account but Terry’s wife Denise, who is also a councillor, isn’t amused. She has responded to some of the tweets pointing out they are fake.

The same “optimum parodiam” phrase was also used in the bio of a twitter account set up in the name of former Council Leader Julie Dore. That account was also created in January 2020 and tweets from it are duplicated on the Terry Fox one.

The Julie Dore account disappeared recently but Sheffield Council officials had to step in on a number of occasions to inform bemused residents that it wasn’t genuine.

One person complained about pavement parking in their neighbourhood and the official Sheffield Council Help account had to intervene and say: “A parody account has responded to your enquiry, it is not from Julie Dore, Leader of Sheffield Council.”

Within hours of Penistone and Stocksbridge MP Miriam Cates being elected in 2019, a hoax account was created in her name. This one at least clearly states it is phoney and is called Not Miriam Cates @CatesParody.

Neither Terry, Julie nor Miriam have their own official accounts which seems to leave them exposed.

There is a campaign against fake news within the media and it seems Twitter has a real fight on its hands.