Zoinks! Everyone Fooled by Fake @Wendy_Deng

Looks like some people are still in a holiday-induced daze. An account that had been given the Twitter verified seal of approval as Wendy Deng, wife to News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch, has been declared a fake. But not before news outlets around the world reported on “her” wacky tweets over the past few days.

@Wendy_Deng began tweeting on New Year’s Day and since then commented on how hot Ricky Gervais is, cautioned her hubby to delete a tweet, and blamed her nails for all the misspellings in her postings. News of the new Twitter account has appeared in AllThingsDigital, The Guardian, and other outlets.

But despite the verification and after some confusion even on the part of the folks at News Corp., the handle was declared a fake and the spoofer came clean.

Besides the note above, we don’t see any other comment from Twitter on the issue. However, they’re going to have to make one. “I had relied on that verification as accurate, since I had assumed Twitter had confirmed both at the same time. Obviously, I am a dope and should not have,” writes Kara Swisher. Certainly, made others feel that way too. Now the social network will have to restore credibility in its verification process with some of its bread-and-butter users — journalists.

Rupert Murdoch did join Twitter on New Year’s Eve (we think) and has more than 90,000 followers.

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