And less than two hours after the revelation, Twitter admitted in a tweet that it had mistakenly verified the @Wendi_Deng account (see tweet below), causing users to poke fun at the legitimacy of Twitter's verification process.
We can confirm that the @wendi_deng account was mistakenly verified for a short period of time and apologize for the confusion this caused.— Twitter Comms (@twittercomms) January 3, 2012
The impostor sent these tweets between 9 and 10 a.m. ET calling out Twitter on its blunder.
Hello Twitter. As News International has finally come to their senses, it's time to confirm that yes, this is a fake account. I'm not Wendi.— Wendi Deng Murdoch (@Wendi_Deng) January 3, 2012
And you have to wonder even more why Twitter verified this account for a full day. I never received any communication from them about this.— Wendi Deng Murdoch (@Wendi_Deng) January 3, 2012
But I'm definitely not married to Rupert Murdoch.— Wendi Deng Murdoch (@Wendi_Deng) January 3, 2012
News Corporation originally told a few media outlets the Deng account was legit, but the company backpedaled and that's when the fake Deng came clean in the above series of tweets.
Mashable had previously reported that "an unverified account" using Deng's full name had persuaded the News Corporation CEO to delete an insulting tweet. Shortly after the exchange, the tweet went missing from his accurately verified Twitter account.
Murdoch joined Twitter on New Year's Eve and has since accumulated more than 90,000 followers.