Social media is spreading like a virus. You can use it to help people reconnect or you can make it a source of evil. In my experience, it seems like it’s more often the latter than the former.
You can easily spread fake information on these social media sites or convince people to help a cause you support. All it takes is typing in the right words, the right people to share it, and it’s off to the races, racking up interactions and follows.
You never know if a viral tweet from Facebook or Twitter is real.
Russia and Ukraine, for instance, have both been able use social media as a way to promote propaganda in support of their sides during the conflict. You have probably seen some viral post on Ukraine’s successes or Russia’s failures and have liked, shared, or retweeted it. Sometimes, those overly exaggerated claims are not true and sometimes the truth is less bizarre. But that’s what happens during times like these.
Lia Thomas’ controversial success late last night has been the focus of attention. A fully-developed, biological male competing in women’s sports has activists on all sides up in arms, and there is endless opportunity for scammers to sucker you in.
You can take this Twitter accountIt is believed that the photo belongs to Reka Gyorgy who was one of Thomas’ competitors last week. The tweet went viral, gaining thousands of followers in just one tweet.
Lia Thomas stole my finals slot, as she is biologically male. We can’t stop competing until we do. We appreciate all your support and retweets.
— Reka🏊♀️ (@RekaGyorgy_) March 20, 2022
The account has several problems.
Timing is the most important. First, timing. The account appears to have been created in November 2021. That is very strange for an athlete who has competed for years in every sport. There are also very few tweet on the account’s timeline, and prior to the viral tweet, none of them belonged to the account itself. These were also retweeted by candidates and politicians.
This very strange tweet was then inserted with the viral tweet.
Amazing, you are all my love @RekaGyorgy_Ich versuche, zurückzufolgen
— Reka🏊♀️ (@RekaGyorgy_) March 20, 2022
You don’t usually put your own Twitter handle in a tweet. That is a mistake.
In the replies to this account, you see a number of folks pointing out that if you search for “Amanda191923” in Twitter’s search bar, it directs you to this account. The account’s first name, followed by a series of numbers, is an indicator that it belongs to some bot. The account owner changed the details of this account to make it more appealing to many people. The carefully-crafted viral tweet was probably amplified by a lot of similar bots within that user’s network in order to draw as much attention as possible.
It’s extremely important to not get roped into scams like this because while these bots are often harmless and exist quietly in the Twitterverse, some of them can be particularly malicious and try to take advantage of users who are not as tech-savvy as you or I are.
We’ve all fallen for a fake account’s tricks before, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. But it’s important in an era like this one, where information comes out at us so rapidly, to take in all information with a critical eye and make sure we’re only retweeting or amplifying the right messages.
Shame on whoever is using this student’s name and photo for their bot account, though. That’s just horrible. Reka Gyorgy released a statement regarding the Lia Thomas controversy.
Virginia Tech swimmer Reka Gyorgy has released a full statement on the NCAA allowing Lia Thomas to compete in the 500 freestyle. She was 17th in the event.
“Every event that transgender athletes participated in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet” pic.twitter.com/Z0J9lUY3pN
— Kyle Sockwell (@kylesockwell) March 20, 2022
With all due respect, I would like to address something that is a problem in our sport right now and hurting athletes, especially female swimmers,” the letter read. “Everyone has heard and known about transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, and her case including all the issues and concerns that her situation brought into our sport. I’d like to point out that I respect and fully stand with Lia Thomas; I am convinced that she is no different than me or any other D1 swimmer who has woken up at 5am her entire life for morning practice. For a competition, she has made sacrifices for family holidays and vacations. She is pushing herself beyond her limits to become the best possible athlete. It is what she passionately does and it is a right. But, on the contrary, I want to criticize the NCAA rules which allow her to compete with us, biologically, women.
I’m writing this letter right now in hopes that the NCAA will open their eyes and change these rules in the future. It doesn’t promote our sport in a good way and I think it is disrespectful against the biologically female swimmers who are competing in the NCAA.
This statement has been shared by multiple major news outlets, so if we got scammed on this one I’m just going to blame Fox News.
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