Sensible Netnonsense

Some online privacy horror stories to keep you Net geeks awake at night

Feb 2, 2009 13:50

With the advent of social media and the ability to connect to thousands upon thousands of people we don't really know, it becomes inevitable that people we'd rather not have any dealings with come into contact with us. And trust me, in the online universe, there are quite a number of unsavory individuals who would like nothing more than to wreak havoc in more ways than one.

Identity theft--or camwhoring gone bad
One type of online horror story I've come across quite often is identity theft. It's pretty much somebody else pretending to be you... you know, like a virtual doppelganger. And it's quite easy to do actually... I mean, you post your information on a social network site or on your blog, your photos are in Flickr or tagged in Facebook. All one has to do is create a bogus email address, register in your name, and input all your photos and information.

The key there is what happens next... and believe you me, I've seen some very devastating effects in my day. For example, there was this one case where a person was being impersonated by possibly a scorned lover and that impersonator started posting everything about the victim. The impersonator created a fake account in the victim's name, posted all of the victim's unsavory details, and even started acting whorish, posting revealing pics of the victim and asking: "Do you think I'm hot?"

Other more common and less-damaging cases of identity theft usually focus on just the photos... some pretty or handsome user posts his/her pictures (and not just one, but hundreds) on his/her Friendster account, and another person who wants to get attention "borrows" the victim's photos and posts them as his or her own. Hence, the birth of the term "poser".

One more damaging way to attack another person online is to use the person's photos for something else... a friend of mine had his photo manipulated and placed on a monkey's body, accompanied with very rude text. It was made by a disgruntled former colleague. Another person I know had her photos posted on an adult-oriented site... and it happened for weeks and weeks because she had hundreds of photos shared online... all of the links to her home site were there, too, so she couldn't hide at all.

That's probably why I don't post as many photos of myself as the regular Filipino social network user... either that or I'm just not good-looking enough to be posed. Heh.

Flaming and rumor-mongering
This happens quite a lot in message boards and other similar social media where people are able to respond to each other quickly. More often than not, because the message board, for example, is very active yet so poorly moderated, when a user creates a fake account and starts posting damaging comments or remarks against another person, and if the damaging content is not removed or moderated immediately, what help does the victim have? The victim usually does not have power to remove or delete negative comments against him even if they're not true.

Take this one rowdy message board I was unfortunate to be a member of. A friend of mine had the bad luck of becoming involved in one of the interior squabbles of the boards, and eventually got sucked into becoming the limelight of the mess. Now the jerks of the message boards are flaming him, calling him names, creating thread upon thread of his supposed virtual deeds, even going to the point of revealing his real name, sharing links to his social networks, some even posting his home address and phone number.

Sadly, my friend had to change his name in his accounts, making them all private, and even then deleting some of the ones he's had for a long time.

Social network horrors
Another very close friend had the misfortune of being the center of attack using all the cases mentioned above: From pictures of her being posted on different sites, to her personal information being revealed to everyone viewing. It was a nightmare that could not be resolved.

The sad thing was, she tried contacting the site owners and publishers, of which their reply was swift: We have no control over what other people post on our site. "The best we can do is inform the poster to take these down." That's it. They even quoted a law in their reply:

You may be unaware of the statutory immunity granted to online service providers such as [name of Web site here] under federal law known as the Communications Decency Act ("CDA"). See 47 U.S.C. §230.

The CDA provides immunity for claims such as the right of privacy or publicity. As both Congress and the courts have recognized, [name of Web site] simply has no way of assessing the validity of your claim that the content was posted with or without your consent or whether the individual who posts a photo has violated any rights of privacy or publicity of an individual in a photo. 

If online services were forced to remove user content simply upon receipt of a complaint, legitimate online discourse would be greatly restricted.

Simply put, the site can't determine if your complaint was real. The same way anyone else can't confirm or deny if what was negatively posted on a site about you was true.

Now what?
So what's your best bet against a possible privacy attack against you? With so many Filipinos now online and active in social networks and other forms of social media, what protection does the everyday Filipino have against a Web site owner half a world away protected by a Congress and laws they have no connection to?

My advice: Be careful. Sure, it's fun to be active in online communities and be part of something bigger. But just be sure to cover your rear end in the event that someone out there has something sinister planned against you. You'll never know... one of these days, you might become a Delfin "DJ" Montano...

Recent Comments

 

Most Discussed

 

Browse Archive