What should we do about a case of Internet Identity theft? Here’s the story: There is an individual of some reasonable degree of fame. I shall call him Guy-1. There is this other individual who is not famous. Guy-2. Both are similar in many respect, including, as far as I can tell, their political views, and those views correspond more or less to at least some of the views professed on this blog.
UPDATE: The offending fake Facebook page has been taken down. I am not sure exactly why, though I do know that some individuals reported the page.
Guy-2, some time ago, created a facebook page that uses the name and details of Guy-1. He may have used this identity to his advantage. For instance, I am told that he publicized an event that Guy-1 was supposed to be doing, but publicized it at the wrong time so everyone else showed up late, allowing Guy-2 to get in early and get good seats. Which all sounds very strange to me.
I am told that friends of Guy-2 have asked him to get rid of his fake page. I’m told that he told them that he did so, but in reality, he only blocked them on Facebook so they could not see him. So he lied to his friends.
I should add that Guy-2’s page does seem to be not in extensive use at the moment, the last actual activity other than friending people dating back a couple/few months. But the page is still there.
How do I even know about this? Because a trusted friend came to me with this information, asking for my help in setting this straight. Which of course, I’ll do if I can. But for now, I’m interested in YOUR opinion. What should I do? Here are a few suggestions:
1) Reveal the fake page’s location so facebook members can, if they wish, report it as fake. (Mitigation)
2) Reveal the person’s name so that future Google searches link his behavior to his name forever. (Punishment)
3) Contact the person privately and convince him to fix this. (Back-channel negotiation)
What do you think? Are there other options? Are any of these options a good idea?
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