The Next Web

Relief. The Twitter ‘murderer’ is fictional. An ‘artist’.

Relief. The Twitter murderer is fictional. An artist.We brought you news this week of a Twitter account called dinner_guest that, sickening or not, captured the attention of many a Twitter user.

The account described in great detail the actions of a Brighton (UK) based serial killer. He or she, with dark often sadistic language, would chronicle their day and murderous activities with tweets like:

“so difficult to know how much blood is too much, I know the body holds pints..but it’s hard to tell how much when it spreads”

and

“The noise was bad this time, I got messy, to much haste to get what I wanted. Must by waterproof tape”

Enough to make your skin crawl.

Today, dinner_guest decided to do the right thing and edited the description of their account to “A fictional character born out of an artists mind. A meme experiment & analysis”, bringing a sigh of relief to those who have tracked the story.

Make what you will of the idea, it’s certainly creative but it does make you wonder how long before this sort of thing actually takes place on Twitter. What would Twitter’s management reactions be, presumably to immediately shut the account down and notify the police? But then again, it then closes probably the only immediate channel of communication. Anyway, this is my mind drifting in Agatha Christie mode…lets just thank the heavens this character is just that.


  • I do wonder that anyone would think it was real at all.

    And it makes me pause when I look at some projects I've seen which indicated they would use Twitter as a medium for an Alternate Reality Game.

    Look at the Spymaster thing.
  • its wonderful thank you
  • Michael F
    Don't kid yourself or be too relieved. Social media is used for real crime a lot. Now how do you know that this is a fictional character? Just because he added a disclaimer calling this an artistic experiment in meme's. What other verification do you have? Are you certain he has not setup other alias accounts and added himself as a friendly face sharing your macabre interest just as a way to target you in some sort of confidence game? After all, confidence artists pray on people through their weaknesses, like greed, sins, and sicknesses as much as they do on their nativity and goodness.

    Well, I don't know and I wasn't following him. I am just asking what other verification do you have other than his own word that this is only an art project? And why would someone quickly dismiss this as a fraudulent prank? Just out of curiosity, do you know of anyone who brought it to the attention of an appropriate authority? Or were people who were following this, just titillated by the thrilling peek into a diseased mind? I don't know. I don't even know if this is true story at all. Oh wait a second it must be because it's on the net and others seem to have seen it. I am just saying this is the first time I visited this site or heard of this whacked out experiment. I certainly know of some sites who have manufactured false profiles to use to spice up or mix in the fan base. I have known writers who have placed up bizarre long running stories and garnered attention for it but never without first having established who they are and that the story was fictional.... Just throwing these thought's out there.
  • Michael F
    I am sure twitter would report a real serial killer if it was credibly brought to their attention or to comply with a request from law enforcement. Shut it down right away? Maybe. However it's a mistake to think that because Twitter hasn't shut an account down that the account is benign. Twitter isn't in the business of policing people's communications. There are authorities that could use Twitter and police people's communications but that is not Twitter's job. I am sure Twitter reserves the right to shutdown any account they wish. Twitter does state in it's privacy policy that it will disclose information under certain circumstances:

    "Law and Harm: We may disclose your information if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation or legal request; to protect the safety of any person; to address fraud, security or technical issues; or to protect Twitter's rights or property."
  • Thank you so much very nice
  • Very ıntresting thanks
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