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:
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:
Of course it's within his rights to create an alternate identity. We can create whatever we want pretty much as long as we don't do anything criminal with the information. It's definitely time to reconsider your choices when the State Department gets involved.
ReplyDeleteSince it happens all the time is the reason we are so careful to teach online safety. You NEVER know who you are REALLY talking to online. EVER!!!! Unless you are smart enough to use the key thing from Little Brother which I am not.
I don't see it as an invasion of privacy, which kind of surprises me. But I surely see it as adding to the growing paranoia we should all have about who we are actually talking to when online.
This kind of reminds me of Marcus in Little Brother creating his identity on the Xnet and getting himself into something way too big. I just said this on someone else's blog, but it bears repeating. People need to really think before they post anything online!
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting. I guess there is nothing wrong with creating an alternative persona and writing from this perspective. There is a rich tradition of authors who have pen names that they publish under. I think where a writer needs to be careful is blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction. Here Tom was clearly engaged in an act of deception and was spying, in some sense, on others. This is similar to the “Little Brother” so how can you trust someone who intentionally lies? What do they say “Trust me, I am telling the truth about this, but I lied about who I am and what I do” which rings a little false.
ReplyDeleteOne well known similar case is James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces”, a piece of fiction penned as a memoir.
Cited Works
"A Million Little Lies | The Smoking Gun." The Smoking Gun: Public Documents, Mug Shots. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2011. .
There isn't anything wrong with creating an alternate identity. What was wrong is that he let it get out of control before he revealed himself. He should have never said she was kidnapped, if he wanted to end the blog why not confess before that?
ReplyDeleteOn the Diane Rehm show (Mar. 10) David Brooks was interviewed for his newest book, "The Social Animal" (see the transcript at http://bit.ly/g0ZYA9). One particular quote from the interview has really stuck with me: "And so, you know, in myself, I found myself -- I just focused on a few individual character traits and not so much on context. And that's important because we all have multiple personalities within ourselves that get aroused by context. And I would say I've discovered some more of those personalities that were lurking down below."
ReplyDeleteTo try to assert that we are always the same person is a hard concept for me. I realize that around different people and in different situations, I am different people in a sense. For the online environment, I feel it is a natural thing to try out different "personalities" and identities given the mask provided by having your body hidden from this world. Wikipedia introduces some interesting ideas about online identities being very permeable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_identity
I agree that it is within his rights to create an alternate identity, but that it went too far with the "kidnapping" and spying. I'm not naive in that I don't think people are spying on people online, all the time. It definitely happens. And it is difficult to tell if the person you talk to online is ever ACTUALLY that person. I was also reminded of the key thing in the book. I'm a bit surprised there isn't more of that in the regular world.
ReplyDeleteIn this particular case, I don't see it as a big deal for Mr. MacMaster to have created an alternate identity. I think it went pretty far when the State Department got involved, which shows that it's not a great idea to create fake identities. However, I don't think it is against the law. He used his new name to discuss issues, not solicit information. He exchanged ideas with people. If I were talking with him online, I would be talking to a stranger whether it was the real or fake identity. He is not invading my privacy. I wouldn't really know the difference as to who I was talking to.
ReplyDeleteI agree that I think it was within his rights to create the false identity. It is interesting that he felt he was able to exercise his intellectual freedom more thoroughly when posting as a gay woman from a Middle Eastern country, rather than as a white American male.
ReplyDeleteWhere he did cross an ethical boundary was in creating relationships with people as this false persona. That's just not right, or fair. However it is not illegal.
I think it is likely that he was giving a voice to a gay girl from Damascus, which she may never have been able to do herself.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately as a result of his lie, the real underlying issues here may take a backseat to his lie.