Had a fascinating chat with a 202 lab this week on social networking identities and journalism ethics. We dove into the tough question of "how accurately does your Facebook profile portray you?" If something happened to you today, would your profile adequately cover your life for purposes of a news story or obituary? Mine wouldn't.
Are social networking profiles real? Or are they more of a "performance space," where you try to be things you're not? Do we only put part of ourselves online?
And what happens when they're purposely manipulated? A new libel case arose this month in Illinois, where four high school students are accused of creating a fake and defamatory Facebook profile for a student athlete. Read the complaint. Harmless kid prank or ruinous to reputation?
Social networking hoaxes are not new. Recall the MySpace hoax linked to a teen suicide.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
False identities in cyberspace
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2 comments:
It is hard to believe that the family who created "Josh's" profile in the Megan Meiers case were not charged. Not even on harassment or anything... Behavior like that should not be allowed.
this was definitely not a harmless prank. kids can be mean and evil. While these kids are high schoolers and juveniles get tried differently because they supposedly have a part of the brain that isn't fully developed making them take bigger risks and not knowing the full extent to which damage can be done, they should totally get tried as adults because i believe that they knew exactly what they were doing.
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