Until recently my former colleague Ian McVie Benson used the account name @imb3 on twitter. For one reason or another he decided to change the account to @ianmbenson. Personally, I think changing twitter handles frequently is a bad strategy if you’re trying to create a long-term brand presence on twitter; but I’m sure he carefully deliberated on this approach (Ian’s a meticulous maker of check lists). However, this post is not about Ian’s strategic brilliance or flaws. It’s about twitter’s flawed approach in protecting the identities of their members. I noticed that the @imb3 account was no longer active, and I decided to try an experiment. I wanted to see if I could create a new account with the same name. Guess what, I could and did. This was a bit of a shock to me because it revealed that someone could effectively assume the identity of another person or organization after they renamed their account. This is such a flaw that I’m amazed that it was seen as even remotely acceptable. Just imagine @NAACP being controlled by members of the KKK (it may have already happened based upon the lack of info or branding) or @Microsoft falling into the hands of Apple fanboys. These are ridiculous examples, but you’ll never know if the person taking control of your account is a friend or foe. twitter needs to fix this pronto. As for my @imb3, Fake Ian Benson account, I will keep it up a few days in support of this post, but will certainly delete it if Ian asks me to shut it down. I hope that twitter closes this identity hole immediately.