|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
Rob Ford's Team Created a Fake Twitter Account, and This Is It
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Race
|
| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Edited | Monsieur Oct 31, 2010 02:51pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | General |
| Author | David Topping |
| News Date | Saturday, October 30, 2010 08:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | @QueensQuayKaren, as her self-penned Twitter bio describes her, is a "Downtown Toronto gal who likes politics, my cat Mittens, and a good book." She has a "George Smitherman for Mayor" twibbon. She also doesn't exist.
Two excellent, sprawling, behind-the-scenes articles just published about Rob Ford's winning mayoral campaign, one from the Globe and the other from Maclean's, tell an identical story of Karen Philby's genesis. The Twitter account was the work of the deputy communications director of Rob Ford's campaign, Fraser Macdonald, and was created with one purpose in mind: getting the whole recording of a conversation between Dieter Doneit-Henderson and the candidate, in which Ford promised the fibromyalgia-afflicted man that he would "****ing try to find" OxyContin for him. Ford's campaign knew the Toronto Star had a copy, and feared it would all but end the race for Ford if the paper published it. So Macdonald created @QueensQuayKaren, befriended Doneit-Henderson ("@DieterDH What have you got on @robfordteam? Nothing I'd like to see more than to bring him down!"), got the recording from him, and then passed it on to the Sun's Sue-Ann Levy—who quickly wrote a typically sympathetic story headlined "Ford feels 'set up' by drug tape."
That was published on June 17. But @QueensQuayKaren didn't stop; she continued tweeting for four months, up until three days before the election.
The 150 tweets sent out from the account range from weirdly uncritical of Ford for a Smitherman supporter ("I can see Ford's appeal. I don't agree with him on everything, but the man speaks the truth. George needs to improve on that.") to weirdly scathing of Sarah Thomson for a Smitherman supporter (Philby attacks her for having a "bitchy attitude," calling her a "total embarrassment") to weirdly hateful of George Smitherman for a Smitherman supporter ("I know [he's] an *******, but we need to stop Ford.") |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
