"Ben Roethlisberger does not have cancer, and neither does he have a Facebook page."There's no truth to it. I don't have any of that stuff," the Steelers quarterback proclaimed yesterday.
"That stuff" are accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and any other social networking Web sites. Roethlisberger said he does not use them, including the one under his name that proclaimed he had skin cancer.
"I had a bunch of people ask me about it. Obviously it's not true," Roethlisberger said after yesterday's spring practice. "We had to go on our Web site to let them know I don't have an account. There's nothing going on."
Accounts proclaiming to belong to Roethlisberger were still listed yesterday on Facebook.com, MySpace.com and Twitter.com.
Roethlisberger said someone in the office of his agent, Ryan Tollner, has been working on removing such posts as this one that proclaimed he was sick:
I am sorry to all my friends cause I have not been on here in a while. As you may soon find out, I have been diagnosed with skin cancer. It is not too serious, but will need further (sic) attention. This has taken up most of my time. I will try to get on here more. I would appreciate your prayers!
Tollner posted this response on the Web site Bigbennews.com:
"Ben positively does not have Facebook or MySpace pages, nor a Twitter account! Any such postings are imposters and should be disregarded. We are actively working to end this problem with those companies."
Tollner could not be reached for comment.
Roethlisberger is among a growing list of athletes and celebrities who have been victimized by the growing popularity -- and apparent lack of security -- of the social networking sites. In the past week, Twitter accounts purportedly belonging to Philadelphia Eagles defensive players Assante Samuel and Trent Cole were exposed as fakes. On those sites, someone writing as Samuel predicted a Super Bowl for the Eagles, and "Cole" wrote about his new sack dance."
No comments:
Post a Comment