Are you a follower of the Dalai Lama? You can evidently follow him now over the Internet - on Twitter. Kinda. Unofficially, at least...

I'm a follower of the Dalai Lama, on Twitter at least. I have about 150 followers; he has almost 20,000. Don't get me wrong; I'm a Baptist. I believe in something like karma (what goes around comes around, you reap what you sow). But I don't do much meditation and I've never really looked into the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I think the Dalai Lama is a great advocate for human rights, but I don't think he's the current incarnation of anyone other than himself. But I digress...

Pete Cashmore over at Mashable has a good story at the moment about whether Twitter should try and verify celebrity accounts. He says the Dalai Lama account is a fake - that neither the Dalai Lama nor his office have anything to do with it. The account, according to Cashmore, has been suspended. That was 3pm yesterday Pacific time; the account was still being updated four hours after that - although they have changed their bio to reflect that they are the unofficial Twitter page for the Dalai Lama. Problem is, they get to keep their ID (so far): OHHDL, which stands for Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Even though, well, they're not connected with the OHHDL in any way. Venture Beat also had a story on the Dalai Lama's fake account.

The problem isn't new, but it's growing. The Blog Herald ran a couple of stories last month on the issue. Some one created a fake David Bowie account. Butthere are some real celebs on Twitter. The Shaq account has bene verified. Britney and Taylor Swift are real. Or there's MC Hammer. Tina Fey. Demi Moore. Al Gore. Dave Matthews. Lance Armstrong. David and Victoria Beckham.

I could go on... But you get the idea.

Cashmore talks about the potential costs involved in having Twitter verify these accounts. But I think it will eventually become something of a credibility issue for Twitter - especially as they succeed in monetizing the site. And I'm sure they're considering that.


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