A hoax Twitter account that parodies Marquette’s administration and Department of Public Safety has gone viral. Since launching last week, @MU_DPS_PR has gained more than 250 followers while poking fun at the university with its satirical advice to students.

“Growing concern on what to do when being robbed,” says one tweet.  “Answer: still dont jaywalk. Run to the nearest corner, then cross.”

Other tweets are more political, taking direct shots at the university and its employees.

“Question: Each professor has a page w/their qualifications,” another tweet reads.  “DPS, being employees, should have the same. How can we know they’re qualified?”

The student behind the account is a male junior in the College of Arts & Sciences.  Although wishing to remain anonymous, he asked to be referred to as “C. Publius,” a reference to the pseudonym adopted by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the authors of the Federalist Papers.

Publius says he was inspired to start the account by “BP Global PR,” a similarly satirical Twitter account that parodied BP following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  The goal of the account, he says, is to bring about “justice.” He cited the withdrawal of Jodi O’Brien’s deanship offer and the allegations of improper handling of recent sexual assault charges as transgressions made by the administration and DPS.

“(DPS is) power-hungry, and without the students they wouldn’t have a job,” Publius said. “They should be there for us before they are for the administration.”

DPS Capt. Russell Shaw said that the account is not the business of his department and did not take any strong position toward it.

“I don’t really have a reaction to it,” he said.  “It really doesn’t affect us.”

Shaw said it would be up to the administration to determine if the student behind the account would be eligible for punishment under university rules.

Kate Venne, director of university communication, referred questions to Twitter’s own terms of service.

“Users are allowed to create parody, commentary, or fan accounts (including role-playing),” Twitter’s terms of service read. “In order to avoid impersonation, an account’s profile information should make it clear that the creator of the account is not actually the same person or entity as the subject of the parody/commentary.”

The @MU_DPS_PR account information does not identify the account as a parody, but it also does not make any explicit reference to Marquette.

“The Department of Pubic Safety Official Public Relations Account,” it reads. “Bringing you the most up-to-date reports on pubic safety.”

Publius says the administration would have no grounds on which to punish him, citing the fact that account officially belongs to the “Department of Pubic Safety” and has not claimed to represent Marquette in any way.

“There is nothing I did wrong,” he said.  “I don’t plead the fifth. I plead the first.”

So far, students seem to think the account is harmless as long as readers understand it is a piece of satire.

“I can’t figure out if @MU_DPS_PR is actually run by DPS,” one student tweeted.  “I’m going to bank on a solid no.”

Alaina Pan, a first year graduate student in the College of Health Sciences, said she could see the benefits of satire as social critique.

“If you know it’s satire and it has the purpose of making people read into the issues,” Pan said, “then it can draw to some flaws of the (administration’s) viewpoint.”