'Ed Show' uses puppet Twitter account for #AskEdLive segment?

NEW YORK, July 24 (UPI) -- It would appear producers of The Ed Show use at least one puppet Twitter account for its #AskEdLive segment, during which viewers can tweet questions for host Ed Schultz to answer live on the air.

During the Ask Ed Live segment on Wednesday's program, a graphic displayed the question from Twitter user @JVCRS1, "Ed, What gets you fired up?"

The only problem is that user @JVCRS1 appears on first look to be a typical Twitter spam-bot, with no profile photo and posts that say "I made $666 dollars today More here..." and "Get slim by summer starting TODAY with Raspberry Ketone!"

The seemingly nondescript Twitter profile of @JVCRS1

On further inspection, it is clear @JVCRS1, whose displayed name is Keith Lockett, only interacts with, or tweets at, The Ed Show and MSNBC.

Keith Lockett looks like an Ed Schultz super fan.

His actual tweet to Ask Ed Live read, "Ed what REALLY gets you FIRED UP? #edshow."

The @JVCRS1 account was also created in July 2009, three months after The Ed Show debuted on MSNBC.

To be fair, it is possible @JVCRS1 is just a superfan who happens to do a lot of Twitter marketing despite not following more than 7 accounts and not knowing how to add photos to his profile.

@JVCRS1's follow list must result in a very boring Twitter feed.

MSNBC has not yet responded to a request for comment.

While The Ed Show wouldn't be the first program to steer seemingly interactive social media conversations with in-house or hired accounts, it does seem brazen, or perhaps just foolish, to link to the puppet account in a later tweet.