(WXYZ) — Fake profiles on social may not be easy to pick out. One doctor with Henry Ford Hospital says someone copied her bio on Twitter.
Dr. Dee Dee Wang says Twitter officials are not taking down the fake profile.
“I was shocked," Dr. Wang said. "I think I was very naive in not thinking that this would happen to a healthcare professional.”
Dr. Wang had no clue someone was impersonating her online until she heard about it from other medical professionals.
At first glance, the photos are different and so are the names. But look closer and you will see the bio is the same.
“(The) fake account was following a lot of female physicians and female medical students and female fellows and trainees,” Dr. Wang said.
The fake profile has been tweeting spam, along with offensive and adult links.
“Taking this impersonation and putting out lies and the biggest fear is, what if a patient sees this,” she said.
Dr. Wang is the director of the Structural Heart Imaging Center, a very specific title. She uses Twitter for many reasons, including to inspire other medical professionals.
“Wanting to learn because what we do at Henry Ford, structural heart is a lot of novel procedures that is new and innovative,” she said.
Dr. Wang and the hospital have reached out to Twitter to flag it but the site responded saying it didn’t violate its policy.
“We’ve been rejected," she said. "We’ve been told there is no impersonation going on because they didn’t use my name.”
Dr. Wang is also concerned because the profile has “liked” tweets and links to medical journals not endorsed by her or the hospital.
“What is the next step? There needs to be something that has to be done," Dr. Wang said.
Twitter responded with the below statement:
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. In response to your complaint, we’ve contacted the user and are requiring them to review their account.
Note that we act on accounts that seek to impersonate, but conduct an investigation to ascertain whether it actively violates the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Please allow 48 hours from the receipt of this email for the user to review their account. After 48 hours have passed, you can reply to this email if you'd like to file a follow-up complaint about the account. Note that Twitter will not proactively monitor the account, but will respond to all valid follow-up complaints.
