The Dalai Lama joined Twitter this weekend, or so it seemed. At least, the Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama was apparently making use of the messaging service under the username @ohhdl. Or was it?

The account was promoting the official Dalai Lama website, and responding respectfully to inquiries. The story spread rapidly on blogs and - of course - on Twitter. At its peak, the account surpassed 16,000 followers. The news was not limited to “new media” outlets, however: the story was syndicated by the AFP today, one of the three largest newswires in the world (a retraction was later sent out).

Seeking Verification

Seeing the potential for an interesting story, we mailed the official Dalai Lama website this weekend to no response. But we also spotted mention of “Deven Hk” in the account: “The OHHDL would like to graciously thank our Twitter mediator, Deven Hk, for providing insight and logistical information”. (Incidentally, at the time of writing, Google’s cached version of the OHHDL account is still viewable.)

We found Deven Hk on Twitter (@HkDeven) and spotted that he was a Dalai Lama expert and enthusiast. When asked whether he was responsible for the account, he replied:

If the account was a fake, we wondered, why did it publicly credit this man, a self-professed “Buddhist geek” according to our correspondence, who claimed to have promoted social media usage to the OHHDL a few weeks earlier? If this user truly had no direct involvement with the account, would it not make sense that the OHHDL was responding to his suggestions?

With limited information, we didn’t run the story here, but we did, regrettably, Tweet about it.

Twitter Account Suspended

Today, Twitter suspended the OHHDL account, and sent us the following message:

Just wanted to let you know that the Dalai Lama’s account was suspended because it was created by an impersonator. We were contacted by a representative of the OHHDL in Dharamsala, India, and after investigating the account it was determined that the account was indeed a fake.

Further correspondence with Twitter simply repeated that the account had been suspended.

With no further responses from Deven Hk at the time of writing, we’ll leave you to conclude why the account credits this self-professed “Buddhism geek”, and yet he claims no direct involvement. It’s likely, however, that he is the key to the faker’s identity.

Should Twitter Have “Verified Accounts”?

This “fake accounts” question is by no means new, although it is perhaps the most visible incident to date. Which leads us to ask: with increasing numbers of celebrities joining the site, and a potential bounty of tens of thousands of new followers for anyone who impersonates a top personality, could Twitter seek to verify celebrity accounts?

The answer is not as simple as it may seem. The volume of resources required to perform such a task could be costly - and while Twitter could charge top brands and celebrities to initiate this approval process, such a revenue stream would not be core to Twitter’s business.

Or would it? With brands increasingly signing up to Twitter to market to their customers, Twitter may look to these brands to create revenue - this model is proposed in Mark Drapeau’s recent article “What is Twitter’s Vision?“. Would a top brand willingly pay to have a “verified account” sticker on a Twitter account? It seems possible.

Twitter Considering Account Verification For Brands

In fact, the signs would suggest that Twitter is considering this option for brands at least: shortly before the publishing of this article, the LA Times blog paraphrased Twitter co-founder Biz Stone as having stated: “Twitter is interested in adding account verification in the future (to avoid pages like Burger King posers Whopper Virgins and the BKlounge)”.

Should celebrities and famous figures also be able to verify their accounts? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.