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The Use of Fake Avatars In Social Media
SEM News Source: http://www.bruceclay.com
Published: Jul 29, 2008 - 08:09 pm
Story Found By: DavidWallace 1293 Days ago
Category: SEM
Lisa Barone writes, "Creating fake avatars as a way to boost your social media efforts - it’s a topic I’ve tried my best to stay away from tackling. Mostly because I don’t want a riot to break out on the blog. I’d rather those riots take place elsewhere and leave our blog filled with talk of unicorns and puppies and cupcakes. However, it doesn’t look like the debate is dying down."
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from crimsongirl 1293 Days ago #
Votes: 1

Trust is valued in communities, including internet commmunities, and people have observed this since the late 90s.  The newer social media properties are no different.  Everyone knows there are fakes on the internet.  I mean, duh.I guess Lisa Barone’s saying, and I agree, that the intent and action of the avatar matters, too.  Ronald McDonald isn’t real, but that’s OK because everyone knows he represents McDonalds.  Some normal-seeming person who really loves McDonald’s hamburgers might be OK, too, but if that person were paid by McDonald’s to hype their product, that would be deceptive and upsetting to the community.It’s like when journalists disclose monetary relationships with their subjects: if they don’t disclose any money ties and the relationship comes out, they risk losing credibility.What about the fake persona who doesn’t hype a product, or who even disses it?A couple years ago I posted on the searchenginewatch.com forums under the name "hutcheson" and pretended to be an Open Directory editor lamenting the decline of that directory.  Now there is an ODP editor who uses the handle hutcheson and who was vocal on messageboards (although not that one.)  I hoped that people would think my post was from him.  My action was a prank, a bit of culture-jamming.  In some sense my action was like that of "Katie Cake" in Lisa’s example because I intentionally deceived people.  But in another sense, I wasn’t trying to sell anything, and the readers of that forum were surely savvy enough to doubt messageboard posts.My post did, however, undermine trust (and it was rightly removed) - that’s what pranks do.  I don’t think anyone who has spent more than a few months on the internet is surprised that these things happen, though.  The web is full of fakes.  The real world is full of fakes.  Check out the Orson Welles movie "F for Fake" sometime.

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from Chris1 1292 Days ago #
Votes: 2

There’s clearly a difference between creating fake personas to game social media websites and the examples of Obama and GoogleGuy.

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from planetc1 1292 Days ago #
Votes: 0

This topic has moved to twitter. Wish it was here as there is some really great discussion going on.

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from iBrian 1291 Days ago #
Votes: 2

I think "fake" is entirely the wrong word to use. Every personal online identity is an artificial projection. Everything from the choice of username, avatar, personal picture, tone of posting, etc. Does no one believing this is something that can be better managed?Arguing the ethics I think remains a distraction - I think there are plenty of positive ways in which multiple identities can be created in order to better engage different user groups. You can be constructively creative.While I haven’t been creating social media profiles as yet, I’ve already been long in planning a strategy on using multiple aliases to project very different interests. 2c.

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from yojpotter2 1291 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I don’t agree with using fake avatars..co’z for me, it is very important to gain your fellow netizens..^^ If you will not use your own profile..it simply shows that you are keeping something.

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