There was a piece in our local capital paper this morning entitled, “Blog has fun at Alito’s expense”. The blog, in question, is samuelalito.blogspot.com. The blogger, however, is not the Supreme Court nomonee, but Andrew Case, a New York City employee and playwright, who registered the samuelalito label on blogger.com when it became likely that the New Jersey judge would be nominated for the high court.
It’s fun, and I’m sure that Judge Alito is getting a kick out of it, but is this right? It’s parody, and that’s part of our literary culture. But to represent yourself, even in fun, as someone else on the Internet, diminishes the value of the Net. Or does it?
- Is it ethical to represent yourself as someone else on the Internet?
- Under what conditions is it ethical misrepresent yourself?
- Is it ethical to be anonymous on the Internet?
- Under what conditions is it ethical to be anonymous?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. But it might be interesting to ask students, and get their take.
The article seems not to be available through the New & Observer web site, but I found it at NorthJersey.com, entitled This just in from ‘Alito’: Put a cork in it, senator!
😉
I love the idea of doing that as a class project (not as jest, but as a source of learning from another person’s perspective), but obviously you need to have some sort of disclosure. To be honest, the idea of doing that without any disclosure is really troublesome. Does anyone really think middle school students wouldn’t be willing to do that as a form of bullying?
My thinking on the questions you raised is this:
1. It is NOT ethical to represent yourself as someone else on the Internet. I can see all sorts of problems arising as a result; however, if it is clearly demonstrated that the site is parody, such as The Onion, or what is taking place is similar to a Saturday Night Live skit — in other words, as long as all parties understand that it isn’t really the person, then it’s OK.
2. It is not ethical to misrepresent yourself if it means that you are misleading someone in a critical way. If you present yourself as a lawyer and give law advice on your site, but in reality you are not a lawyer, your advice could cause people harm.
3 and 4. It is absolutely ethical to be anonymous on the Internet if you want to be. However, I do think that doing so in order to step just this side of libel or slander in order to hurt someone else is very cowardly. I think if you fear that what you say could hurt your career, then you have two options — 1) don’t say it, or 2) don’t use your name when you say it. Also, if you need to maintain anonymity for some other reason that doesn’t hurt anyone else, it is perfectly acceptable.
Hi David,
As you mentioned, satire and parody have a long history of being effective and ethical uses of “impersonation.” Think of other media. When Dan Ackroyd did his Nixon on Saturday Night Live (how’s that for dating me), was it considered “unethical”? Look at the Onion that represents itself as news. Aristophanes parodies Aristotle in The Frogs, heaven knows how long, BC.
I always try to find analogies to the physical world when thinking about right and wrong in the virtual one. Doesn’t always work, but it certainly seems a good place to start.
All the very best,
Doug
There are severeal impersonator blogs out there, some wonderful attempts at blogging like masters of a bygone age, others snarky satires of public persons:
Franz Kafka
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau
Samuel Pepys
T.H.Huxley
David Brainerd
Tom DeLay
Harriet Miers