"On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog."

The article that caught my eye this week was about the Syrian Blogger Hoax. I had never heard of it before until I ran across this segment on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/13/137148644/man-behind-syrian-blogger-hoax-something-innocent-got-out-of-hand

It turns out that a man named Tom MacMaster has admitted to creating an online identity in the form of Amina Araf, a popular blogger who said she was a Syrian-American living in the Middle East. Her blog, Gay Girl In Damascus, gained media attention after the rise of conflict in the country of Syria.

MacMaster credits the hoax spiraling out of control to his pride. "When I got a first couple initial media bites, I was extremely flattered and impressed with myself that here I had written something that was fictional but it was getting taken seriously as a real event," he said. "It appealed to my vanity that here I am, I'm so smart, I can do this." He spent up to 2 hours a day online to keep up this identity, and his wife didn't know about the blog until after it became popular. 

After he realized it had gone too far, he tried to stop the blog itself. He thought he might bring the story to an end by saying that Amina had been kidnapped by Syrian authorities, but instead of it all going away, the outpouring of support from her fans made the situation explode. Even the State Department sought to get involved with her recovery.

One of the things that stood out to me was that MacMaster admits to using Amina’s profile to “snoop around sites that MacMaster couldn’t”. With a name like Tom, he feared people wouldn’t take him seriously and would just associate him with America. But, with a name like Amina, he could discuss ‘real questions’ on subjects like the Middle East or the US involvement in Iraq.

To me, it is definitely an invasion of privacy to present yourself as someone else to gain access into others’ personal lives, even if you had good intentions. This happens every day though. We see it in Little Brother when the Homeland Security agents infiltrated the Xnet, and we hear terrible news stories about children meeting predators online.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you see it relating to the topics we have discussed in class? Is it within our intellectual freedom rights to create an alternative identity on the Internet?

Here is a link to the blog that MacMaster created:

http://damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com/

Facebook Facial Recognition

The latest news coming out of 'social networking land' is that Facebook has opted-in all users to a facial recognition feature that helps make tagging photos easier. Whenever you upload photos, the facial recognition technology can identify the people in your images and suggest who they might be--all you have to do is confirm whether or not their guess is right. The European Union is investigating the situation to see if privacy rules are being broken, and privacy advocates are speaking out as well. 

This technology is already present in desktop applications like Google's Picas and Apple's iPhoto, but the difference here is that the database detecting and tagging these photos resides on the Facebook's server, not your personal computer. 

You can change your privacy settings to stop Facebook from automatically helping others tag you in photos, but the settings are hard to find. Also, there is no confirmation that Facebook has wiped the data about you from its servers as promised. The article provides a step-by-step guide to changing your settings, including visuals to help you as you go. 

Do you see this as an issue? Should Facebook be allowed to have this kind of database? Is it fair that we were automatically opted-in to this feature? 

Does anyone have an argument in support of this feature? The government already has a database of our pictures and information, so should we really be worried about whether or not Facebook has it too?

Article link:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/229870/facebook_photo_tagging_a_privacy_guide.html

Additional articles to from PCWorld:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/229831/facebook_on_face_recognition_sorry_we_screwed_up.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/229742/why_facebooks_facial_recognition_is_creepy.html

Are video games taking it too far?

The inspiration for this week’s blog topic actually popped up on my Twitter feed. Entertainment Weekly tweeted about the topic of graphic content in video games and I thought it would fit in perfectly with discussions about intellectual freedom.

The link shows stills from several different video games and asks if these images are gratifying for gameplay or simply gratuitous. Nudity, graphic sexual content, and violence have always been issues of controversy in books and movies, but those issues have now crossed over into games for your Xbox, Playstation and Wii. Non-print materials are some of the most circulating items in library collections these days, so I thought it would be good to discuss them in the same way we discuss books.

After some searching I came across an article from PC Magazine Online called “Banned Video Game Called ‘Fine Piece of Art’”. This article discusses ‘Manhunt 2’, a game that was banned in Britain and Ireland that is now facing restricted sales in the US because of its violent content. The game’s publisher stands behind the game fully and says "it brings a unique, formerly unheard of cinematic quality to interactive entertainment, and is also a fine piece of art." In this game players become insane asylum escapees who kill enemies in gruesome ways. ‘Manhunt 2’ was made by Rockstar Games, the same company that created the Grand Theft Auto series.

I was most interested in the fact that big name retailers like Walmart, who according to the article account for 25 percent of U.S. video game sales, refuse to carry ‘Adult Only’ titles. Game makers Sony and Nintendo will not allow ‘Adult Only’ content on their systems either. 

Because of it’s rating, the game’s future is unclear. Take-Two, the publisher of Manhunt, recently hired new executives after a ‘shareholder-led coup’. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is quoted saying that "this is one of the tasks ahead of new management, to rein in that creative talent and tell those guys we are in the business of making money and you should make games that will sell, not games that are artistically beautiful but not available at Wal-Mart”.

This topic, and last quote, raises several questions. Should video games be given the same treatment as books? Should libraries collect ‘Adult Only’ games? If these games are pieces of art, should executives have the right to force gamemakers to ‘rein in their talent’ in effort to make a larger profit? Are video games taking their content to the extreme?

Entertainment Weekly link:

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20498778,00.html#20969008

Article:

"Banned Video Game Called 'Fine Piece of Art'." PC Magazine Online 21 June 2007. Academic OneFile. Web. 2 June 2011.

Document URL:

http://find.galegroup.com.proxy2.ulib.iupui.edu/gps/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A165436343&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=iulib_iupui&version=1.