A fake account which called itself the Deer Park Police Department in Texas was verified by X for several days, officials confirmed Wednesday after posts from the account were widely shared on the app formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The @deerparkpd account was created in late June and given a grey checkmark, which implies the account was manually reviewed by X employees and verified as a government agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is not our account, and I am not sure how it came to be,” Deer Park Police Chief Greg Grigg told BNO News on Wednesday. He said the department would look into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fake account claimed to represent a village near Dallas but no such community exists, as the only place in Texas called Deer Park is a city near Houston. The fake town also had a website with news and events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Come join us on Thursday, July 4 for the annual Deer Park Fourth of July Celebration at Mari Memorial Gardens,” said a news article on the fake town’s website. Records show the website was created on June 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Posts and screenshots from the account were widely shared on X and the fake police department had more than 13,000 followers when it was deactivated at 4 p.m. ET, shortly after this article was published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The owner of the account then reached out to BNO News and identified themselves as a minor, saying the account was created as an inside joke among friends with no ill intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I made up a fake village called ‘Deer Park’ and made my own website and social media accounts for the fake village,” the creator said. “I then requested a checkmark through X’s official grey checkmark request page, and they accepted it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The creator added: “Just to be clear, I had no knowledge that a real city by the name of Deer Park existed, and I had no intentions of impersonating them. I simply wanted to make a funny parody account for a made up village that’d hopefully get a few laughs out of people.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The creator said X approved the grey checkmark without any verification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They didn’t ask anything further,” they said. “I simply filled out the request form and a couple of days later I got an email stating my account was going to get a grey checkmark.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday night, the account also shared a screenshot<\/a> of an email from X, which said: “Thank you for submitting your request. Your account has met our eligibility criteria and will soon display a grey checkmark.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n X did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The account was reactivated on Wednesday night, this time with the verification badge removed and “PARODY” added to both the display name and bio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n pic.twitter.com\/LxxG7ruRyp<\/a><\/p>\u2014 internet hall of fame (@InternetH0F) July 3, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/20240703Account2.jpg\")
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