Thousands of people follow an account whose operator is unknown.
14.5. 18:00
Saturday night’s Eurovision final was excited not only in Liverpool and the home stands, but also on social media.
The contestants actively updated their social channels regarding the atmosphere of the evening. Finland’s representative Karija, who finished second, was no exception.
Jere Pohonen, better known as a rapper, was seen celebrating the win on Instagram and Tiktok as well as on Twitter.
The Twitter account, which appears under the username JerePoyhonen, published an update shortly after the final result of the quiz, thanking everyone in English for their love and support. The publication also includes a picture of the end point balances of the countries.
The account uses the name Karija Raja.
Although the account does not belong to Pohonen, it is a parody account, according to the account’s description.
While the updates do not appear to be a parody, the account clearly impersonated the real Scroller, and posted multiple updates as me.
For example, on the seventh of May, the account published an update with the text “I’m ready” in English. The text and images of the post are almost identical to Karija’s post on her Instagram account on 7 May.
New publications are added to the account several times a day, and they are both in Finnish and in English. A large part of them are almost direct copies from Karija’s own accounts.
According to Tuomas Lasinharju, interviewed by IS, Pohonen’s social media persona has been praised as “powerful and honest”. The Karija king account appears to be using Pohonen’s own, widely panned persona.
The first update to appear on the account was published on April 9.
The account has around 17,000 followers. At the time of publication of the article, the account itself follows 163 users.
According to Twitter comments, the parody account’s details were only entered in the account’s biography, after Pohonen himself stated on his official social media channels that he only owns Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook pages. A Twitter user shared Karija’s video on his channel.
Several people also told on Twitter that they reported the user.
“Fake accounts” are not an unknown phenomenon for other public figures as well.
For example, singer, musician, songwriter, actress and screenwriter Paula Vesala published an Instagram update on January 29, in which she said she had been a victim of the incident.
Even though the news about Karija’s fake account has spread widely on Twitter, complimentary comments still appear under Karija King user’s posts.
The person behind the account is unclear, although suspicions are circulating on Twitter.
