How I identify fake athlete Twitter accounts

For those that don’t know, I also list confirmed fake Twitter accounts as part of my Sports on Twitter directory and this website.

What constitutes a confirmed fake account? If I’ve already identified a legitimate account for the athlete in question, I know all others are fake. If I contact the team or organization and they inform me that the athlete is not on Twitter, I know the account is a fake. If the account is clearly labeled as a parody, I know it is a fake.

Some notables from the confirmed fakes list include:

• Eli Manning
• Terry Francona
• Manny Ramirez
• Martin Brodeur
• Evan Longoria
• Kobe Bryant

None of these people have official Twitter accounts at this time!

How to access the complete list of fake athlete Twitter accounts:

1. Click the “Complete List” tab at the top of the screen
2. Scroll down until you see the different pages for each sport at the bottom of the embedded spreadsheet
3. Hold (do not click) your mouse over the little arrows in the bottom right hand corner
4. Scroll all the way to the right and you will see the fakes page

Please note that I will be moving the fakes page to its own page on this website as I transition all the pages from the current embedded spreadsheet over to their own individual pages.

You’ll notice that my current list of fakes isn’t very large. That’s because I try to identify the longstanding fakes, the accounts with the most followers, and the ones that “seem” legitimate. Admittedly I prefer to work identifying legitimate accounts and adding those to my directory rather than adding confirmed fakes but I know people benefit from both types of listings.