Ed SolomonWell here’s a weird first legit post. Can someone please explain (actual serious question) how/why there are two fake me’s on this website already? These (below) are both imposter sites. Weird. Is there something I can do about this?
Also: hi!
delwyn@EdSolomon Mastodon as a service is a collection of servers that can share messages with each other, rather than just a single server. That's why we have "user@server", much like an email address. The fake Eds have been created on different Mastodon servers. I haven't seen anything about whether Mastodon as an application can/will support some way of verifying the authenticity of a user, but I haven't really gone looking into it.
ML2@EdSolomon Both of those are bots mirroring your Twitter account on the other site. They were probably made long before you came here.
Yeah. It's creepy. I know. A lot of people block those servers for good reason.
Yeah. It's creepy. I know. A lot of people block those servers for good reason.
@EdSolomon Correction: those are actually not bots, so...yeah. Contact the instance admins of those places.
lookitmychicken@EdSolomon
These both look like accounts that pull in a feed of your tweets from Twitter and republish them for people on the fediverse. Do the fake accounts just contain copies of your tweets, or is it some other content?
My guess is that some people who left twitter wanted to keep reading your tweets, so they set up these crossposter bots.
Lea de Groot TZ+10@lookitmychicken @EdSolomon yea, I believe the birdsite addresses are all Twitter copies, created by some script - that’s assuming the content is a copy of your old Twitter account, of course
Christopher Snowhill@lookitmychicken @EdSolomon Several instances, including mine, defederate such non-consensual Twitter feed mirror instances, because of that very reason: They just mirror random Twitter accounts, possibly at the behest of random people simply submitting those accounts to the site for inclusion, without any consent from the owner of the Twitter account.
By "mine" I mean the one I'm using, not that I have anything to do with staffing it.
Chema Hernández GilThey're just automated "bridges" to Twitter. See here: https://birdsite.wilde.cloud/
Lise PylesI can't help you with the fake account thing, but let me be among the first to say "Hi!" back to you. I've heard you speak a few times at AFF and it's always a pleasure.
Sean Tilley@EdSolomon Those appear to be mirrors of your Twitter account. Some people use Twitter bridges so they don't miss out on Tweets here.
Darren Clarke@EdSolomon maybe they’re the ones getting your Men in Black royalties!!!
Fabien Hurelle@EdSolomon Welcome Ed! Nice place here full of creatives, great for discovery & long takes
Those should be bots replicating your content from twitter. Hence the birdsite URL each time.
Can't find them anymore, looks like they're gone.
As @averagejenn_again said, here the real "official" status is through a link to your own website.
On Preferences>profile you can add your website
https://www.edsolomonofficial.com and there's a bit of html code you have to add on your website that links to your profile.
Thomas Lorenzen@EdSolomon I’ve reported them. These things tend to proliferate on some of the less reputable servers. It’s a constant battle to get them taken down. Price of a well known name. Also, hello! Took your recommendation and saw Mike Birbiglia last night. Brilliant, funny-as-hell storytelling!
Damien@EdSolomon Yeah as others have said, I don't know of any way to really verify, but at least you aren't giving the Muskbag more interaction on his hellsite. Glad to see you made it over sir, as you were one of my favorite follows and one of the biggest things I missed when I deleted my account.
@EdSolomon Not sure if anyone mentioned this yet but if you have an official website/page that you run - you can add a tag in the HTML code that links back to your Mastodon profile, and it will "verify" you. Since you own the site, it essentially proves that you are the "official" account. I used my pathetic old blog as my verification. No one in their right mind would claim that.
