Twitter hoax may prove costly … someday

All I know about Jake Berlin is that you can’t trust anything he posts on Twitter. (Heck, I don’t even know for sure if that’s his real name.)

And I only know Berlin’s public pronouncements can’t be trusted because he’s the guy who generated a slew of media attention over the weekend with a Twitter stunt that made it appear as though he had been ejected from the Pittsburgh Steelers football stadium for merely threatening via his tweets to run out onto the field. He even posted pictures of himself at the game, the last showing him glumly being driven away in a golf cart by what we were to believe was a security guard.

Among those taking the click bait were the Los Angeles Times, TIME.com, The Drudge Report, Yahoo Sports, Sports Illustrated and a parade of bloggers eager to chronicle an audacious kid’s bid for his 15 minutes of fame. The tale was an irresistible slice of social-media life that I may well have written myself if not for the fact I was glued to the tube watching football all weekend.

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Network World Paul McNamara