| |
Impersonating
someone else (Internet)
By ContinuousPark
Mon
Jan 8th, 2001 at 06:56:58 AM EST
|
 |
|
This NYTimes piece
talks about an interesting hoax performed by an anti-WTO group. I
found it to be very amusing and justifiable as a form of protest.
But I'm also wondering whether the practice of impersonating someone
else, if extended, could cause serious disruptions on our social
structures, on the way we communicate with each other, on the weight
we give to some opinions over others and on how we build trust.
What's the function of hoaxes in society? In what instances is it
necessary or desirable to impersonate someone else in order to make
a point?
|
|
|
The NYTimes is
running a piece
on an interesting hoax made by "The Yes Men", an anti-trade
organization that happens to own gatt.org. GATT stands for General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and is the predecessor of the World
Trade Organizacion. So it turns out that the organizers of a legal
seminar on international trade in Salzburg, Austria went to this
site, which might lead you to think it's the real thing, and sent an invitation to WTO
director Mike Moore. Then, Charles Cushen, a Yes Man, invented a
persona and send her to give the lecture with the fake
recommendation from Mike Moore itself. They actually went all the
way to Austria to give the lecture in terms, of course, not very in
line with WTO's policies. It's a long story but the fictitious
persona eventually dies, WTO's legal department finds out about the
hoax and it ends in the NY Times. Now, I found it to be very amusing
and justifiable as a form of protest. But several questions come to
mind.
1. The organizers of the seminar should have known
better to fall for this but, come on, they saw it at gatt.org. Other
more informed people have fallen for something similar, as this example
shows (go to the bottom of the page to December 17). What can be
done to educate people about this possible situations?
2.
What advantages can be found in using a different persona to express
oneself? What about cases like this one, when several people are
behind one persona? (see this
for another example that's somewhat widespread in Europe) Doesn't
this give them a stronger voice? Isn't easier and more powerful for
somebody who tries to communicate something to post something as a
fictitious persona that might have greater renown, a well construed
reputation?
3. What ethical, not to mention legal,
consequences might arise from doing something like this. What could
happen to organizations like the Yes Men, that sistematically use
hoaxs of this sort as a form of protest?
4.Could this
practice become more widespread? And if it did, could it make us
more conscious to pay more attention to what's being said and not so
much to who's saying it? Or would it severely distrupt our
mechanisms for establishing trust and informing
ourselves? |
|
|
![]](yesgk520010108_files/rt_edge3.gif){kind=small}
