Is the Exxon Mobil Twitterer a fake?

Earlier this week I started following the ExxonMobilCorp Twitter account by Janet at Exxon Mobil in Irving, Texas, where the company has its headquarters. Among other things, Jane reports on the company's latest efforts in corporate social responsibility and cooperation with NGOs.

When I noted that I'd found the account through another user, my own comment was, "Who knew?"

Supposedly, not Exxon Mobil. According to investigative bloggers & the Houston Chronicle, the oil company did not authorize this "faux" Twitter account. It's not part of their PR, and they apparently don't know who "Janet" is.

Why Exxon would be concerned is obvious from the screenshot below. Not only does Janet claim to be speaking on Exxon's behalf, the company skirts pretty close to campaigning for a particular presidential candidate.

This raises a number of interesting issues. A#1: who the hell would do something like this? A well-meaning company employee who thinks she's helping its image? An Exxon fan? Or a culture-jammer who is working up to making the company look bad? The reference to Angola and Indonesia is rather interesting in this regard, because as professional do-gooder types know there's a bit of history behind that so-called partnership.

If anything, l'affaire Exxon Twitter is a reminder for anyone with a name to make sure that no one's speaking on their behalf, which is why folks are using this as an object lesson in brandjacking.

But brandjacking and internal action aren't really the same thing.

And here's one piece of evidence that it could have been a well-meaning--and perhaps even authorized--insider. A quick Google search finds at least one person named Janet who edited an Exxon corporate memo and, according to her phone message, still works for the company. I have no idea if she's the Twitterer--I'd hope a corporate lawyer or accountant would not be so careless--but at the very least it indicates that the Irving, TX HQ has an employee named Janet who could have set up the account.

Perhaps this is my due diligence spider-sense kicking in, but if I were someone tracking down this story I wouldn't accept Exxon's "shocked, shocked" response at face value without a more thorough investigation--particularly in light of this PR-speak from Exxon's spokesperson:

What if this was an employee in a remote arm of the company, would it then be ok?

“It’s not really relevant, there are only people that are authorized and not-authorized, even people with the best intentions, may not know what the appropriate position is or the facts, we think that there’s a problem, as we don’t want to be misleading people and there’s a lot of errors what the person is posting even if it was something that had the best of intentions could be misleading."

The key words here-"It's not really relevant"--are noteworthy. Rather than say "it's not an employee," he says the issue isn't relevant since the employee wouldn't have been authorized. It's the sort of response that would be a red flag to an investigator, at any rate. And if it's an employee, I wouldn't call the Twitter account a fake as much as a mistake.