An officially verified Twitter account for media-shy US author Cormac McCarthy has turned out to be fake.
“The account referenced was verified by mistake and that has since been reversed,” a Twitter spokesperson told the Associated Press on Monday.
“The account will also be required to adhere to Twitter’s parody, newsfeed, commentary and fan account policy.”
The McCarthy account, @CormacMcCrthy, had more than 48,000 followers at midday on Monday, including Stephen King.
It was set up in September 2018, but was only recently given a blue tick for verification.
Another McCarthy parody account from 2012 managed to fool Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, who tweeted at the time: “We have the best authors in the world right here.”
McCarthy, 88, rarely speaks to the press and has no known presence on social media.
His novels include All The Pretty Horses, No Country For Old Men and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road.
Some of the tweets on the current parody account make light of his unfamiliarity with technology.
“My publicist is on my case about my infrequent use of this infernal website,” reads a tweet from last week.
“He says engagement is down and so are metrics and something something who cares.”
