Actor Ralf Little said he has been suspended from Twitter after changing his account to mimic the Conservative Party press office.
The Tories came under fire for rebranding one of their official Twitter accounts as a “fact-checking service” during Tuesday night’s televised election debate.
Twitter warned that a repeat of the incident would result in “decisive corrective action”.
However, by Wednesday morning a number of celebrities re-branded their verified accounts.
Royle Family actor Ralf Little changed his name to “Conservative Party Press Orifice” and the description to “Not a fact checker. Or the Conservative Press Office”.
He told LBC’s James O’Brien: “Just been logged out of my Twitter account without explanation. Assume I’ve been suspended. Which is fine. But only if the @CCHQPress account is suspended for the same thing. Please continue to press the issue with Twitter in my absence.”
He was not the only verified celebrity to rebrand his account.
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker changed his account to mimic factcheckUK, as did The Thick Of It and Veep creator Armando Iannucci.
The Electoral Commission – the official elections watchdog – issued a warning following the incident, saying voters were entitled to expect “transparency and integrity” from campaigners.
However, senior party figures brushed off the controversy, saying it was part of their “instant rebuttal” mechanism to challenge “nonsense” claims made during the debate.
In a statement, Twitter said: “Twitter is committed to facilitating healthy debate throughout the UK General Election.
“We have global rules in place that prohibit behaviour that can mislead people, including those with verified accounts.
“Any further attempts to mislead people by editing verified profile information – in a manner seen during the UK election debate – will result in decisive corrective action.”
Ralf Little steals the night as Tories rebrand party Twitter account to factcheckUK
Since you are here
Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.
Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.
Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.
If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.
To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.
The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.
The shop can be found here.
You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .
