Since the Internet’s invention, people online have blurred fact and fiction. Over the last couple of years, the blurring has grown quite inventive.
Many Internet tall tales are benign – people on dating sites listing themselves as “29 when they are closer to “40” – while in rare cases, they can be dangerous.
Consider these examples:
In the harmless category, I think of lonelyGirl15, who back in 2006 purported to be a 16-year-old girl named Bree with a bedroom webcam posting gossipy videos of herself on YouTube. It became a big hit – but the girl was an actress and the videos were professionally produced.
In another case, media outlets questioned whether singer Marie Digby was really a talented but amateur musician who was discovered after posting homemade videos of herself performing on YouTube – or if she had long before signed with Hollywood records, and the YouTube videos were a PR stunt to imply she was an unknown gem.
Or have you seen the popular video of flying saucers over Haiti – the UFOs are very realistic – that turned out to be computer generated?
In each of these cases, we were sucked into watching something contrived that we thought was spontaneous.
In one of the saddest cases, a 13-year-old Missouri girl killed herself recently over a failed Internet romance that turned out to be a hoax. A woman involved faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly using a MySpace page to pose as a 16-year-old boy and feign romantic interest in the girl. After her online love interest spurned her — telling her the world would be a better place without her – the girl killed herself.
While there are many other examples, let me know of specific cases worth mentioning and I’ll add them to this post.
I think it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction on the Internet as technology becomes more user-friendly and its capabilities more sophisticated, as companies and entrepreneurs are challenged to find creative ways to attract viewers, and as the Internet becomes even more pervasive in people’s lives. I’ll state the obvious and say to be careful about believing everything you read or see on-line.
