Today begins my responses to readings from class and applying the to the theme of this blog- netiquette on the internet. While I read a lot of articles that really made me think about technology (specifically Web 2.0 tools), my favorite article I had to read was “Atwood in Twittersphere” written by Margaret Atwood herself. If you do not know who she is, get to know her because she is fabulous and funny, which was very refreshing after a few in depth articles. However, back to the issue at hand!
One of the main rules of netiquette is to be yourself . Although the number is always changing, it is believed that on average 1 in 10 internet profiles are fake. Even if the profile is of a real person, some of the information they post could be fake. Currently on Facebook and in the Twittersphere there is a growing number of fake profiles and followers , which according to netiquette is a BIG NO NO! I wonder how many of Margaret Atwood’s followers are fake…
There is a lengthy list of reasons you should not create a fake profile, but in my opinion I think the main one is that it is just not right! (and nice). Poor Margaret Atwood was a Twitter newbie ( as was I up to a week ago) and someone stole her name and her picture, “My first problem was that there were already two Margaret Atwoods on Twitter, one of them with my picture. This grew; I gave commands; then all other Margaret Atwoods stopped together.” Luckily for her this stopped, but the same can not be said for everyone. With more and more socialization taking place through social media and the internet the issue of fake profiles is increasing daily and completely falsifying the social interaction those people get.
The internet is a scary place. Especially when someone could be using your name and picture. I typed my own name into Facebook and found three other people using my profile picture- which honestly freaked me out ( if anyone knows how to fix this please tell me). The more I read about this issue and found statistics, the more I realized why people need to be educated about internet usage before they take part in all of these social media sites. Everyone should know simple techni
ques to keep their information safe as well as how to identify what a fake profile looks like. For all of you curious out there, here a few tips provided by abcnews.com to identify fake profiles! However if you feel you need more information- type identifying fake profiles in on Google and tons of helpful tips will show up!
Please protect your information and yourself from these fake profiles and mean people. I hope one day the learn what proper netiquette is and their real selves and internet selves become the same person!
Here is a list provided by Yahoo.com of the people with the most fake Twitter followers. Crazy, right!?
Inconsiderately Polite 