Above is a screenshot of the opening to an article in the UK’s DailyMail this morning (in case they pull it, which they have, here’s a full screenshot) claiming that Steve Jobs had confirmed an iPhone 4 recall was on the cards after issues with the phone’s antenna had surfaced.
Unfortunately Britain’s second biggest newspaper has egg on its face as the article quotes the notorious Fake Steve Jobs twitter account as the basis for the entire story.
We may have to recall the new iPhone. This, I did not expect.
Steve Jobs
ceoSteveJobs
It’s a hefty blunder from the UK’s most popular newspaper website and one that’s going to leave it with an embarrassing retraction to make, if it does in fact decide to make the retraction at all. Wonder whether the might of Apple will be in touch to have the story removed and force a retraction – Jobs made Ellen do it. (Update: the Daily Mail has removed the article, screenshot here)
Hey, at the very least the story has given twitter users a good Sunday morning giggle right? Can’t be all that bad.
I think this just proves how useless the mail is, I don’t see why people bother with it
Article now removed, I wonder why! http://bit.ly/a424mF
screenshot here: http://thenextweb.com/uk/files/2010/06/dailyfailr.jpg
The daily mail is a pathetic right-wing conservative rag!
Oh this is brilliant. What a moron the writer must be – and what happened to editorial checking?! Fsj isn’t exactly a new thing
The Fail is 100% never the “UK’s most popular news website”, it’s probably not even the most popular news site amongst it’s readership.
Yeah, it is, sadly. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/24/abce-may-2010
Just to clarify, @CeoSteveJobs is not “Fake Steve Jobs.” The real “Fake Steve Jobs” (aka Dan Lyons) Twitter account can be found here: http://twitter.com/FSJ
I love the way the Daily Mail writers failed to read down to see earlier tweets such as:
“Just FaceTimed my wife. If you know what I mean.”
Also, the bio on the right hand side says:
“I don’t care what you think of me. You care what I think of you. Of course this is a parody account.”
As a final thought (@Kessler) – I love the way you draw a distinction between the fake fake steve jobs account and the real fake steve jobs account… I admit that the fake fake steve jobs account might not be as “notorious” as the article describes, but still it made me chuckle…
This is the real Steve Jobs Twitter account– http://twitter.com/AAPLSteveJobs
Hmm…fake fake fake? Steve Jobs following Bill Gates and starting Twitter only four hours ago, with two followers? Looks like we’ll be getting a hundred fakes from now on.