Fans, celebrities and press attending New York Comic Con on Thursday sent out laudatory tweets expressing excitement to be at the annual convention -- or at least it looked like they did, as the tweets were published entirely without their permission or knowledge.
The tweets were tied to attendees' NYCC badges. This year, conference organizers Reedpop allowed people to pre-register their badges online. The badges have radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips that are tied to a user's identity in order to curb counterfeits. (RFID chips use radio frequencies to transfer information between the chip and a receiver.)
Attendees were then invited to connect their social-media accounts to their badge, although it wasn't explicitly stated that NYCC could post to Facebook or Twitter on their behalf.
As people checked in to the convention on Thursday, many published tweets looked authentic (and were written in conversational language), but were not written by attendees. Here's a selection, below:
1 #NYCC http://t.co/ykhDvP1SLj— Chelsea Stark (@chelseabot) October 10, 2013
So much pop culture to digest! Can’t. handle. the. awesome. #NYCC http://t.co/KWGNcKPdJd— Brian Crecente (@crecenteb) October 10, 2013
#NYCC is the Best Four Days of my Year! http://t.co/r0mjC7v87b— Harry Knowles (@headgeek666) October 10, 2013
Pop culture overload! Just checked into #NYCC! http://t.co/RLBoRBiWYe— Greg Miller (@GameOverGreggy) October 10, 2013
Hey, @NY_Comic_Con. I did not Tweet this. What the hell? Your wifi? Your app? pic.twitter.com/GqMgsi712B— Greg Miller (@GameOverGreggy) October 11, 2013
The bit.ly links redirected to New York Comic Con's Facebook page, and the tweets were all tagged with #NYCC.
UPDATE, Oct. 11, 10:55 a.m. ET: A representative sent Mashable the following statement:
As you may have seen yesterday, there were some posts to Twitter and Facebook issued by New York Comic Con on behalf of attendees after RFID badges were registered. This was an opt-in function after signing in, but we were probably too enthusiastic in our messaging and eagerness to spread the good word about NYCC. We have since shut down this service completely and apologize for any perceived overstep. Please accept our apologies and have an absolutely excellent time this weekend. -Your friends at NYCC
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