As of this post’s writing one year after the incident, when you google Keisha’s name, that tweet is still one of the top results.
As of your post's posting, when I google Keisha’s name, that tweet is nowhere to be seen, nor any reference to it. That is still the case if I add University of Maine to the query, or Isabella Maria DeLuca. If I search for TheeMaineMum (as in the image of the tweet) I do find references, but their provenance is unclear.
Is there any source for this other than the video you linked?
Huh. When I search using either google or duckduckgo they both show the tweet under Images. I edited the above post to include this image, per your suggestion.
I attempted to find additional sources online while writing this post, but there's nothing out there. Perhaps the Youtuber stumbled across it at the time and wrote it down, but it wasn't covered by any media outlets. And that's part of the point I was trying to make---trolls can take you down with no repercussions. Keisha's left to pick up the pieces of her tarnished reputation.
Or possibly the incident never happened. If the only evidence is the supposed screenshot of a tweet, and no trace can be found of this Keisha Daggett of the University of Maine, and searching just on the name "Isabella Maria DeLuca" (who with all respect is not much of a public figure) turns up no references to it, and all searches on the subject bring up nothing but copies of the screenshot, it looks to me like a fabrication. Whether by "DarkMatter2525", the author of the linked video, or by someone he uncritically picked up and ran with, I don't know.
The video is pretty strange. An hour of this deep voice slowly rumbling about (supposed) example after example of how everyone out there is lying to you. It looks like a hypnotic induction intended to sow paranoia in the viewer.
Update: I found the original tweet screenshot on Isabella Maria DeLuca's Instagram. (You'll have to scroll down a bit, it's from 20 Dec 2022.) At least this is a step closer to the origin of the story than the video, but it would take more searching than I am going to do to find out any more. Did the tweet actually happen? Was it actually by this Keisha Daggett or not (who is conveniently reported to have deleted all her social media accounts)? At this point I don't know and I don't care. Neither of these people is anyone that matters.
Neither of these people is anyone that matters.
That's like saying "well, 40 people were murdered on my block, but I don't know any of them, so it's nobody that matters". The fact that a random person is victimized means that the system allows victimization of random people. The next fake Twitter message could be posted in your name and ruin your reputation. (And "I don't use Twitter" isn't going to prevent it from affecting you.)
And I could be in the cross-hairs of the next serial killer. I do not walk in fear of that happening.
A YouTube video scared the shit out of me the other day. It tells the story of identity theft on Twitter that resulted in disaster and could have serious ramifications for anyone who uses the internet.
Normally, if you want to trash-talk on Twitter, you do so anonymously. To use your real name and photo while trolling is asking for trouble. But what if instead of using your identity to troll, you borrowed someone else’s? That’s exactly what happened to Keisha Daggett.
Somebody created a fake twitter account using Keisha’s name and borrowed a picture they found of her on Facebook. Then they used this account to send the above message to Isabella Maria DeLuca: a conservative commentator with a few hundred thousand followers. Isabella exposed the message to her audience and sought to ruin the reputation of Keisha, not knowing the account was a fake.
The real Keisha received death threats and was eventually terminated from her finance job as a result of the mob’s effort to cancel her.
About a month after the fake account was created, its author deleted it. But the damage was already done. On Facebook, the real Keisha lamented at how terrible it is that somebody would make such vile remarks to another woman.
As of this post’s writing one year after the incident, when you google Keisha’s name, that tweet is still one of the top results.
Every subsequent employer who googles her name will find it. Many employers, presumably, will simply overlook her for a different candidate with less baggage. Wouldn’t you? Imagine the pain of having to explain this debacle in every cover letter for the rest of her life—a neverending nightmare. And it’s a nightmare that could be coming to a theater near you. For in the age of the internet, nobody’s safe.
Reputational roots in our evolved history.
We evolved in small hunter-gatherer tribes of about 150 people. It’s in that setting that anthropologists hypothesize we developed large brains for the express purpose of being able to maintain complex relationships. In a tribe of that size, word gets around fast of a person’s behavior.
Think about the implications back then of starting a false rumor about a fellow tribemate. If you could do it without the rumor coming back to you as the source, then you could besmirch their character. If severe enough, their reputation could be ruined and ostracization may become imminent for that person—which in that prehistoric setting likely meant death because you probably wouldn’t last long on your own in the wild without the support of others. Thousands of years later, people are still playing the same dangerous game but with different technology.
Reputational warfare has evolved.
People today are just as vulnerable to rumors as our hunter-gatherer counterparts. Keisha is the perfect example of that. And what’s frightening about her case is twofold:
Implications for you and I.
It would be simple to execute this type of attack on anybody. You could use a public computer (to avoid tracking an IP address to your home) at an internet cafe or library to create a fake identity account and wreak havoc. You could message a person’s company about alleged rape, publish hate speech on their behalf, or make direct threats as in the case of Keisha’s troll. Also, with improvements in AI, if you have enough video footage of a person, you could create a convincing deepfake of somebody telling their employer “fuck you, I quit!”
This feels reminiscent of the evolutionary arms race between predator and prey. Predators slowly develop a new skill for hunting; prey numbers dwindle until a new trait in their population evolves that helps them evade the predators once more—ad infinitum.
Similarly, in response to developments in reputational warfare tactics, we may see a growing number of people adapt to the new, harsher landscape. We could see a shift towards only using anonymous accounts online. Or if the online space becomes oversaturated with mischief, perhaps nobody, including employers, will take any of it seriously and the web may become a wasteland of fake identities. With this burgeoning threat on the horizon, how will you prepare for it?