Ingrid Betancourt. A Twitter stuntman participates in the presidential campaign.

At the end of April, Ingrid Betancourt, candidate for the Colombian presidency, denounced on Twitter that another account was impersonating her on that social network. The account in question had posted tweets and participated in her name on Spaces in which, according to the candidate, someone was faking her voice.

The differences between Betancourt's account and the one he was denouncing were minimal. They had the same header photo and the usernames had only a very subtle distinction: what in the real account was a lowercase "L" in the other was a capital "I." The two accounts had the same header photo and the usernames had only a very subtle distinction: what in the real account was a lowercase "L" in the other was a capital "I".

The biography was also almost identical. Both said: "Mom, grandmother, Colombian and free. Presidential candidate for the Oxygen Green Party. I will free Colombia from corruption". However, the account that Betancourt denounced added a key word at the end: "Parody" (parody). 

Under the parody account policy, Twitter allows the creation of humorous or satire users about other people, as long as the user identifies that the real person referred to is not linked to the profile. Twitter requires this clarification to be made in the biography and in the name of the account, that is, in the text that appears in highlighted letters under the profile picture and above the handle (which the platform calls username). To comply with these requirements, the platform suggests using words such as "parody" or "fake" to indicate the true character of the account.

This policy is an exception to the impersonation rule, which penalizes those who impersonate someone to deceive or mislead other users. According to the policies, if a parody account is reported for impersonation, the platform will review it for compliance with its community standards.

In the case of Ingrid Betancourt, the account that parodied her only partially complied with the requirements, since the indication was made in the biography, but not in the name of the account, which was the same as the candidate's profile, except for the fact that it did not include her second last name. Furthermore, according to the data verification portal Colombiacheck, the word "parody" was only added to the biography after the candidate's complaint. 

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The rules on impersonation and parody accounts do not take into account the use of Spaces, a live audio streaming feature that Twitter enabled for most of its users in May 2021. The service imposes an additional difficulty when it comes to knowing who is participating - both listeners and speakers - as its design does not allow users' full names to be seen and to know if they are indeed real accounts.

Twitter assures that a Space can be suspended if it breaches its community standards and that it will also retain copies for thirty days to verify possible infractions. However, there is no information on what other sanctions may be applied if the transmission has been terminated, and whether they would fall on the speakers or the administrators. 

By the time he alerted of this situation, Ingrid Betancourt's fake account had reached more than 11,000 followers, a quarter of those of the candidate, which did not prevent her tweets from having a large reach. On April 20, she posted a message in which, on behalf of Betancourt, she expressed in favorable terms about the allegations against senator-elect Piedad Córdoba, accused of having delayed her release when she was kidnapped by the FARC. The publication had more than 700 retweets and was replicated by singer Marbelle, who has already been involved in other Twitter controversies related to the electoral campaign. A few days later, the fake account ceased to exist.