By: Eli Locke

Sentry Staff Reporter

Over recent weeks, the slew of school cancellations and delays has wrought havoc on the favorite social network of most current Patriots: Twitter. Any annunciation of such changes to the schedule due to snow will most certainly be followed by a boatload of tweets, ranging from complains about the cold, jubilation about cancellations, and even contempt towards the county in situations in which it decided not to cancel or delay school despite the weather.

While riding the excitement of having days off, many students either tweet about cancellations and delays or re-tweet various Arlington Twitter accounts that verify such announcements. In fact, many students bypass the Arlington Public Schools (APS) website itself, where delay and cancellation news is always posted and correct, and head directly to Twitter to see if school has been delayed or canceled. The soundest source is the APS Twitter account itself, which can be found at @APSVirginia. Other respected and verified professional accounts like Arlington County’s official account (@ArlingtonVA) as well as the account of the local news website ARLnow.com (@ARLnowDOTcom) may tweet news on school scheduling changes as well. (For movie stars’ as well as news sources’ official twitter accounts, these accounts receive a blue check-mark next to their name. However, since APS is a local organization with a narrow following, they do not have such verification and neither do most school system accounts.)

It is common knowledge that nowadays many students rely solely on these reputable Twitter accounts to find out about school cancellations. Therefore, it was only time before a fake account surfaced. Mimicking the real account by using the same twitcon (profile picture) as well as going by the very similar name of @APS_Virginia, the account quickly rose to popularity with the plethora of school cancellations and delays that had students all over the county elated. Despite these similarities, the account did indicate it was completely fake in the biography section of the account, which can be seen clearly whenever anyone clicks on the account. However, instead of tweeting when school was actually canceled, this fake account instead relayed false information about school being delayed or canceled on days in which school was actually in session. Moreover, most students re-tweeted the account simply as a playful attempt to dupe fellow Twitter-readers into thinking school was delayed or canceled when in fact it was not.

I believe Twitter is a great place to have fun. Many students enjoy posting and seeing hilarious Twitter pictures of friends who have fallen asleep or are partaking in other antics via the widely popular #BeatWL hashtag used throughout the week of both the football and basketball games against our rivals.  Yet, always remember to check your sources. One should always be skeptical of anything seen on social media that has not been verified by a news conglomerate. Still, it is best to wait for multiple reliable sources like NBC and others to confirm breaking news, as in some cases worldwide sources can even report false information themselves. For example, on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, the Associated Press’s official account was hacked and tweeted a completely false report that president Barack Obama had been hit by a bomb in the White House. In fact, the tweet in itself briefly affected the national stock market.

Pertaining to the fake APS account, most students quickly realized it to be totally fake and a comical way to attempt to trick other gullible students into believing school was canceled, only to check the APS website and be distraught with having to go to school the next day. The fact that the account itself stated its own falseness within it’s ‘bio’ section is enough reason to scoff at any Twitter-goers who even believed the account to be true- simply click on the name of the account and it is clearly stated it is fake.

All in all, the account is harmless fun. For now, the account has been banned, as a search of its former Twitter name verifies. I see no problem with the account, and any students who became genuinely angry at the account after finding out its reports were false only have themselves to blame.