Not in the spirit
Apr 24, 2009 Nuvo-Techno, O Mores!, Social networking
A little too friendly
This makes sense to me. Via Above the Law I found this item on something called “Facebook ghosting”:
One popular Facebook “ghost” was a blond female temptress, the site reports.
The team allegedly would use these fake profiles to get friend-level access to recruits’ information on the site. The thinking there is that if a team official spots a player in Facebook photos smoking dope or partying hard, the team might avoid a bad draft pick and a potential public relations problem.
The fake profiles are called “ghosts” because they disappear soon after they surface.
I wonder if this technique exists in other spheres of recruiting? At law firms? At banks? In other sports?
There’s no hard evidence the NFL ghost-profile incident is part of a trend, said Justin Smith, editor of the blog Inside Facebook, which tracks the social networking site.
It’s not only going on with athletes and prospective employees. I’m 99% sure that the rash of friend requests that I have recently received from essentially unconnected, untraceable young women claiming to be Christians but looking decidedly, um, different in their mode of dress is part of some attempt to get conservative bloggers of a certain level of prominence (like somewhere above the C-list, I guess) to do and say stupid things for later use.
Quite the dirty trick. Lucky for me I — well, no, it has nothing to do with luck. I’m just not stupid.
Careful out there, boys and girls.
UPDATE: A famous blogger friend passes along this link — all that “principles are for everyone” stuff is for political consumption, don’t you know. Duping righties is completely cool. It all depends on the ends!
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