Wednesday 13 July 2011

Sockpuppetry of the dicks

What would you do if, like me*, you had a prominent online presence and people started saying nasty things about you on blogs or in comments or on Youtube, or you weren't happy with your Wikipedia entry?

If you said, "I would create a fake online persona and set about deviously correcting all of these perceived wrongs" then you are a dick. If you are now thinking "you'd have to be a moron to believe that you could get away with something like that" then you are not a dick, although you are a bit up yourself.

Recently, a couple of high profile hands have unwillingly emerged from the sockpuppets they control. First up was Scott Adams, author of the comic strip Dilbert. He created the pseudonym PlannedChaos and for several months went around defending "himself" on websites such as Reddit and Metafilter, including, at least twice, referring to himself as "a certified genius". He ended up outing himself as certified douche bag.