Impostors posing as Chicago government officials, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot, posted a series of tweets early Friday morning falsely claiming that North Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive is being permanently closed.
The accounts posting the false tweets claimed to be Lightfoot, the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation. Their posts had been seen by well over 100,000 people early in the day, according to Twitter data.
The impersonation effort came just a day after Twitter removed verification from accounts that had been previously verified for the purpose of credibility. Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s controversial decision to remove the “legacy” verifications took away the authenticated status of all three of the impersonated accounts.
“We’re excited to announce that beginning 5/1/23, N. DuSable Lake Shore Drive will be closed to private vehicles between Grand and Hollywood,” the account falsely posing as CDOT wrote.
The accounts falsely impersonating IDOT and Lightfoot also shared the message.
“My administration is proud to announce the single largest decarbonization effort in the history of Chicago. This will eliminate more than 50 million metric tons of CO2 within the next year,” the account falsely impersonating Lightfoot wrote.
After a Tribune reporter first flagged the impersonations in a tweet, mayoral spokesperson Ryan Johnson shared that the Lightfoot administration was aware of the fake accounts and working...
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