Media artist Kyle McDonald has embarked on something few people would dare do: he has opened up his Twitter account to the masses, allowing anyone to post as him.
Questioning the notion of an online identity, McDonald announced that he "decided to put my own identity in the hands of the public."
A new feature on Twitter allows users to choose whether or not they would like to receive direct messages form anyone, whether they follow them or not. McDonald coded a way for Twitter users to send him direct messages that would be posted publically on his feed, as long as they put a tilde symbol (~) before the message, they would essentially be tweeting as him.
This project has already started and has attracted a lot of attention. Many people post silly tweets, confused tweets asking whether sending this direct message would even result in a public tweet at all, but most seem to be plugging their own websites or companies.
McDonald said: "There’s a strange connection between our self and our body. The connection is assumed, because they’re difficult to separate. But the only thing connecting our identity to our online persona is the knowledge of a password. What happens when we break that connection and dilute our online identity?"
