Here’s a funny story to get your mood elevated with the start of a new work week. Apple CEO Tim Cook is not one of those guys who likes to collect social media accounts as though they were Pokemon. Per 9to5Mac, since 2013, Mr. Cook has had just a pair of social media accounts. One was a Twitter account, and the second account was one for Chinese social media site Weibo. Since Apple conducts plenty of business in the country, it would make sense for Cook to open such an account. But that is not the story here.
Ever since Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion, the site has been a little, oh, let’s say, unstable. We do understand and even applaud his goal of turning Twitter into a super app like WeChat which is a one-stop place for financial services, messaging, and more.
But we could see that Musk often shoots from the hip to propose changes to the site and the man who runs the most valuable publicly traded U.S. company (which is Apple) doesn’t seem to be the type to get involved with such instability. Which is why it seemed conceivable that Cook would dump X for, say, Instagram.
So it appeared quite normal to see that Apple’s CEO opened an Instagram account with the username @tim.d.cook last month. And if that didn’t seem legit enough, the first post dated August 20 was about World Photography Day and included two pictures snapped with an iPhone. How Tim Cook-esque is that? The next post was made on August 23 and it showed a 30-second ad that is part of a campaign Apple started last week to promote its partnership with 3DPets.
Instagram has removed the fake Tim Cook account
3DPets uses LiDAR and the TrueDepth Camera on the iPhone to help build prosthetic limbs for dogs. Posting the 30-second ad surely sounds like something that the real Tim Cook, the CEO once known to the most powerful man in the world as Tim Apple, would have on his Instagram feed. The account ended up being followed by Apple VPs such as Lisa Jackson (Vice President of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives) and Alan Dye (Vice President of Human Interface Design).
Other Apple employees were also following the account even though there had been talk that the account was fake. And sure enough, Instagram removed it because it was fake! That might not be ROTFL funny, but it is amusing at the very least. If you do feel the need to send a social media post to the real Tim Cook, you can contact him on X at @tim_cook. Tell him that Alan Friedman from PhoneArena said hi and he will say, “Who?”
In all seriousness, this is exactly why there needs to be a legitimate verification mark available on all social media sites that has nothing to do with subscribing to a premium account. We know that Elon needs to hike the cash flow at X, but you shouldn’t have to pay to verify your identity on a social media site.
