To all of you using Twitter, a word of severe caution. Since so many have asked, this is why I no longer use that service and why I don't advise others to use it either. If you want to follow me, please come to Facebook where it's safe for you and where I'll be making my Twitteresque comments until my new site is launched. http://www.facebook.com/sherrilynkenyon

We’ve all heard of Twitter’s greatness; how it’s been embraced by CNN, Oprah, even President Obama. And since I’ve had a major online presence since 1990 (I was the first author to develop her own web site in 1994), I’ve always relied on the web, and prior to that gopherspace, as a major marketing tool. From the moment, I saw the magic blue Twitter page that would allow me to instantly connect with my readership in a way never before possible, I saw it’s potential. I could now let my readers know through Twitter alerts when I had a new release or if a signing location had changed onsite and at events. I could give them up to the minute information on all manner of things in regards to my books. When I hit a list, when a title was changed, etc. My readers and I were brought closer as we shared day to day information with each other.

But there’s a dark side to this service I discovered on May 11th. And it isn’t just the Twitterjacking where someone sets up an account pretending to be a celebrity.

This is a case of someone hacking into my account, locking me out of it and then using my account that I’d publicized to terrify and harass me and thousands of my followers. Since I had a book out on May 12th, I’d told all my followers and fans to watch for my “Tweets” so that they could take the tour with me and experience the trials and joys of a book tour as it happened. I’d planned to make updates through my phone and take pictures which could be added to the service while on location.

It was the next best thing to being there.

But when I tried to post my first tour Tweet, I was logged out and unable to access the service. I didn’t think anything about it since anyone who uses Twitter knows it is often overcapacity. I chalked it up to that until a fan emailed me to let me know someone had posted a suspicious YouTube video to my account that didn’t seem like me.

It was the Blondie song: One Way Or Another, I’m Gonna Get You. Ominous to say the least. I had no idea who had my account and I had no way to access it at all. More posts appeared. In that account, the hacker taunted me as I tried to login with my email and account name, and have my password emailed to me (the hacker had changed my email of record and locked me out completely). They posted a link to Little Richard’s video: Keep A Knockin’ But You Can’t Come In.

In my other account that I’d used to post updates from one of my book characters, they were using what fans told me were Bulgarian insults. Since I don’t speak Bulgarian, I’m relying on the two international fans who translated the posts as Post #1 “Whore/Prostitute” and Post #2 “Actions will be taken” or “Leave me alone.” Which when combined with the other two videos I found terrifying and disturbing. Was this some psycho who might show up at a signing?

What other steps would they take?

Were they threatening me or my fans? Who were they insulting? Since I didn’t know who was posting, I had no idea what they could do or what they might post next– all on MY account under MY name. The fans at this time, still thought this was my publicized account even though I used my other lesser followed Twitter accounts and newsletters to notify the fan base. Many didn’t get those notifications and I didn’t know how much of a deal to make of the situation since I didn’t know how the hacker might react– all this while I’m on a book tour.

Given the high profile clientele on Twitter, I thought Twitter would be extremely responsive to such cyber terror.

Instead, I discovered a response time that only a broken tugboat hauling an oceanliner would envy. Twitter even sent an email instructing me on how I could be to blame for my account being taken.

I, who have taught courses in online safety since 1986 and who has spent my adulthood cautioning others. This from a service who uses a system that gives a hacker access to half your login information the moment you pick an account name for the world to see?

Where are their safeguards to protect their users? How can a service that caters to government officials, celebrities and news agencies allow someone to change a user’s email and password without notifying them?

Other services have automailers to notify a user whenever someone tampers with their email or passwords.

Twitter doesn’t.

In fact, all a hacker has to do is figure out your password and your Twitter Nirvana becomes a hellacious nightmare. One that I’m still enduring with no end in sight.

The first forty-eight hours were spent trying to regain control of my account from the miscreant who’d seized it. We filed police reports, contacted lawyers and attempted to contact Twitter.

Their posted email addresses on their site came back with a delivery notification failure. It would be the officer investigating the case who would ultimately find a working email, but not even that generated anything more in the beginning than form emails from Twitter that didn’t pertain to my case.

The online form I filled out on Twitter’s site May 11th wasn’t responded to until May 23rd, a response that says the following:

It's been a little while and we haven't been able to get to your request. Twitter is a free service, and while we try to provide as much help as we can, we can't get to every email.

A hacker had locked me out of my account that was being RSS fed on my website where I have millions of hits a month and my widgets that had tens of thousands of subscribers and my publisher’s website, an account with thousands of followers I had told to watch that account because I was going on tour and would be posting in it– someone other than me was posting updates to my fans while I lived in constant terror of what hate-speech might come out of their mouths next.

Twitter’s response?

We can’t get to it. Sorry.

But to be fair to Twitter, they only have, according to an article in USA Today in June 2009, forty-three employees for a company that serves millions of users. Imagine living in a city with millions of citizens and relying on a police department of only forty-three people to keep watch on your safety.

On May 20, Twitter did ultimately suspend my accounts that were seized on May 11th. For 10 days my primary sherrilynkenyon account was in the hands of a hostile hacker posting to the entire world as me in my account. An account I had advertised as mine that the world knew was mine.

Here it is June 21 and I still have no real resolution from Twitter. While I finally do have a live person to email-- who hasn't emailed me back for weeks now, I still don’t control the accounts. So I've made the decision not to spend my valuable time developing a page that could be taken away from me at any moment and one that can be used to hurt or threaten my fans while the people who own Twitter twiddles their thumbs.

The world is filled with enough uncaring people. I'm not one of those. Let's gather together where I know we're all safe from cyber-bullies. I'll see you on Facebook and in a couple of weeks, on my new site where I will be posting.

Hugs!