Twitter hands over student’s account to his college

No, we do not police the social media activity of our students, a New York university said last week, and yes, we have a sense of humor – remember the banana we taped to the wall in the student union and then posted on Instagram?

That was part of a Twitter stream posted by the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Geneseo, defending itself after a student’s parody account of the college – originally called @SUNYGenseeo, switched to NOT SUNY Geneseo, and now renamed geneseo’s #1 fan – was hijacked.

The account’s rightful owner is 20-year-old SUNY student Isaiah Kelly. As first reported by Business Insider, last week, Kelly had to use his personal Twitter account to vent about having been shut out of the parody account, which he uses to poke fun at the school’s social media presence, news and messages to students.

But it was neither the school nor hackers who took over the account and forced through an unrequested change to the associated email address, thus locking Kelly out. It was, in fact, Twitter, having royally screwed up when enforcing its own policy about impersonation accounts.

Twitter’s policy says that it may suspend an account that…

…portray[s] another entity in a misleading or deceptive manner.

According to the policy, Twitter doesn’t remove accounts that clearly state that they’re not affiliated with or connected to any similarly-named individuals or brands. Nor does it remove parody, newsfeed, commentary, or fan accounts.