Entertainment legend Betty White has joined Twitter, but was initially thought to have been the victim of a Twitter hoax after an account claiming to be her was opened by White’s people, without White herself being informed.

The profile was first revealed to be a fake by White through her ‘Hot in Cleveland’ co-stars Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli when they each took to their own profiles to advise users to unfollow the person claiming to be White.

While fake Twitter profiles are commonplace on the social networking site, this alleged hoax was even more surprising due to the fact that White’s alleged profile had a verification checkmark, a feature which only Twitter itself is able to give when it has confirmed that profiles are indeed legitimate.

The profile, under the Twitter handle @BettyMWhite, went up on April 10 and amassed over 140,000 followers by the time of this writing. Only three tweets had been posted before Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli, with whom Betty currently co-stars on the TV Land sitcom ‘Hot in Cleveland’, reported that it was in fact an impostor running the profile. Bertinelli wrote:

Just spoke with Betty and she is VERY upset! @BettyMWhite is NOT her. Don’t know how they got verified, but it is not Betty. Please RT!

Leeves followed with:

@BettyMWhite is a fake and has upset the real Betty White! Please unfollow!

However, just minutes later Bertinelli took to her Twitter profile again, this time writing:

Stop the presses! Betty just got a call. An account was opened on her behalf by her people. More to come…

The evident confusion will likely become a source of amusement for fans of the 90-year old screen icon, who are no doubt looking forward to seeing her attempt to grapple with a popular form of modern technology.

A hoax, however, would have been embarrassing for more than just as her fans as television network NBC was already using it to help promote their new series ‘Betty White’s Off Their Rockers’, while the TV Line website earlier today crafted a ‘@BettyMWhite Twitter Bingo Card‘ for users to play along with as they watched the Emmy winner’s foray into social media.

While it seems that White’s people will be doing all of the tweeting, her official presence on Twitter makes her one of the oldest verified celebrities on the site.

Image Courtesy of   Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com

The article Betty White Joins Twitter in Hoax Confusion appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Emma Sullivan, a student at Shawnee Mission East High School in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, tweeted during a meeting at the Youth in Government session in which Kansas Governor Sam Brownback spoke, “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot,” according to a New York Times report.

The Youth in Government is a program designed to, “provide students with an atmosphere that promotes increased self-esteem, positive personal growth and development, a sense of empowerment, and a respect for the uniqueness of others,” according its website. Sullivan later claimed that in the Tweet she was “just joking with friends.” She did not speak up during the assembly, the msnbc.com report stated.

Brownback’s office watches social networking sites for his name. Once they saw Sullivan’s tweet, they reached out to the Youth in Government program. Sullivan was required to go to the principal’s office, who requested she write an apology letter, according to the msnbc news report.

Brownback released a statement that appeared on his Facebook account. I “My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms. I enjoyed speaking to the more than 100 students who participated in the Youth in Government program at the Kansas capitol.

They are our future. I also want to thank the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum. Again, I apologize for our over-reaction.” Sullivan has since tweeted, “I’ve decided not to write the letter but I hope this opens the door for average citizens to voice their opinion & to be heard! #goingstrong”

Sullivan said she would “do it again” in the msnbc news report. The same report stated that Sullivan had 65 followers on the social networking site before tweeting and now has nearly three thousand.

Twitter is considered one of the more popular social networking sites with 1.5 million accounts, according to Business Insider. However, it does not claim the same amount of success as Facebook, which has 600 million active users, as reported by Business Insider. FourSquare also has more than Twitter, with 7.5 million people registered, according to Business Insider.

Image Courtesy of   https://www.facebook.com/govsambrownback

The article Teen Gets in Trouble for Tweets About Governor Brownback appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.