A group of twitter accounts have been created in an attempt to influence LUU politics.

Three profiles on the popular social media website have been identified as fake accounts pretending to be female students.

One of the accounts in question is using the image of a dead girl on its profile.

The profile, which pretends to be a first-year Maths student, is using the the photo of a 15-year-old girl, Rosie Whitaker.

The late teenager committed suicide after suffering from bulimia in 2012, which has been reported on several national media websites.

Two other profiles on the micro-blogging site have also used ‘fake’ profile pictures.

It appears that the images for the two first-year female students have been garnered from a ‘hipster tumblr’ website.

There is a strong suggestion that the accounts are related.

As well as ‘following’ one another on the social media website, the accounts have retweeted each other and appear to have been set up within a fortnight of each other.

The majority of tweets from each account appear to have been sent just a few minutes apart.

It appears that the person(s) in charge of the accounts have a working knowledge of Union politics, as well as the NUS elections.

The accounts also share a strikingly similar group of followers. They also follow a high proportion of the same people.

The accounts have tweeted about the LUU big debate under the hashtag #leadluu, as well as actively criticising executive members and have backed candidates running in the NUS delegate elections.

A union spokesperson said: ‘The Union doesn’t take responsibility for policing these accounts.However, we would ask people to consider the feelings of others when creating accounts and setting profile pictures and to not cause unnecessary upset.’

Unofficial profiles are rife on the social media site.

Although Twitter uses the ‘blue tick’ authorisation system in order for public figures to validate their profile, the website also encourages users to report fake accounts.

A second-year Philosophy student said: ‘I think it’s really bad for the reputation of the NUS elections. It’s particularly shocking that the identity of a dead person has been used. I hope the Union get to the bottom of it.’

A fourth-year Politics student said: ‘Student politics are so careers-tailored that I’m not surprised people are plunging to these depths to succeed.’

The identity of the account creator(s) is currently unknown.

 

Jasmine Andersson

Photo courtesy of Sam Broadley