JCC On Gender, Catfishing and the Internet

hate leads to dark chocolate and some really amazing cookies.

 

I miss the frantic pace this thread had going when it was fresh, oh well old news now.

 

We don't get that pace round these here parts too often no more.

 

Well this is all new to me as of last night when I finally checked out this thread.

That bastard...
































Never sent me any YouTube links.

 

consider yourself lucky.

 

Since this thread has been upped, can I ask if the MS has discussed how to handle suspected "frauds" like this in the future? I'm not talking about rooting out every bogus claim (this is the internet, after all) but in this case, a user was an absolute fraud for years, and at least one mod knew about it for quite some time, during which the user continued to ingratiate himself among quite a few users under incredibly false pretenses.

 

There is nothing wrong with what s/he did. Nothing against the TOS.

 

Weakest up ever.

 

That's what your ex said about you.

 

There was nothing specifically prohibiting sexual harassment either until the policy was created, which was after Sapient was banned. Also, the overall TOS Principles of Behavior state: "Users are expected to conduct themselves in a manner which is respectful to themselves and fellow users at all times." Creating a totally fictitious identity and using it to get close to another user is hardly what I would call "respectful".

And I'm not necessarily talking about banning the person, more than anything exposing the fraud to protect other users. Probably half the posts in this thread are people claiming "I've known for years!" And the people making those claims include several mods and admins, past and present. And yet until people specifically asked what those comic covers specifically meant, there was never an attempt to tell the community at large, "FYI, ASG/Julie is actually a fat guy named Mike."

I don't think the MS should run around being "identity police", fact checking every claim made in these forums. But in an extreme case like this, I do think something should have been done.

 

I totally understand where you're coming from, but that seems like a very broad overinterpretation of the TOS. Unfortunately, people can and do mislead others over the internet all the time. Who's to say what is or is not an extreme enough misrepresentation? And couldn't it also be argued that it's disrespectful to those users for mods to publicly out them (especially if it's based only on suspicion, which this was until pretty recently)?

 

Eh, I disagree.

With Yankee, not Beth.

 

Burn'em at the stake I say.

 

I think I'm usually someone who's for less modding, not more, and it's a pretty odd situation. Honestly,I probably wouldn't have said anything if not for all the people coming out of the woodwork claiming they've known for years, while a good number of people who are regulars here (I'm specifically thinking of Frieda) had no idea and really let down their defenses around ASG.

 

Late to the party (insert Bruce Willis "welcome to the party, pal" YouTube here). But I know I had these discussions with folks as far back as at least 2009 (if not earlier)? I don't recall, maybe Harps or Kendra do, but it's a long time ago. I only bonded with MJ over Fear of a Black Hat so there's not much on my end, but I totally understand where people stand on the whole being deceived thing.

Also, just some resources for people because (as people forget when I was a mod) I used to be really, really good at internet stalking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Death_Index

Here's a free search:

https://familysearch.org/search/col...earch.org/searchapi/search/collection/1202535

There are six Ginas in the database who died in Texas in 2008. None of which seem like a match. No Julis.

You are all welcome to continue searching (though bear in mind, the DB isn't 100%) but realistically:

 

IF a MOD knew 100% for sure, AND he/she knew about the private PM's of such a deceptive and intimate nature than that is a violation of the TOS.
But it would take other MODS to actual know too to do something about it.

 

Public records are great for this stuff.

 

Whatever happened to the wonderful policy outlawing "knowingly posting false information"?

 

That's true, hal.

I guess it depends how much false information this person posted as opposed to spread over IM.

 

Well it's hard when you don't have a last name, we know she was half oriental of her fathers side, but who knows if she used it.
Italian on her mothers side, so your looking for either of those. Unless the whole thing is bunk, only one person directed us to Texas and that could even be bogus.

It's a mystery.
If this is all a lie we will never find it, but if it's the truth, there are some pretty good internet detectives and PI's I think it could be discovered

 

Hal, that's always been... dodgy. Since we do that all the time in JCC, in knowingly jokey ways, as well as every sock pretending privacy would also fall under that

There was also a specific conversation in MS (zomg!) long, long ago about profiles -- since I think Jotun or some other folks were listed as both girls and 6 years old or some such, which was clearly not true and so profiles are sort of given a pass (though if you find someone REALLY under-13, you take action as that's actually illegal).

EDIT:

You can search by first name only.

 

I wouldn't say any mod "knew about it for quite some time." I mean, it was discovered that the picture this person was using wasn't actually them a while back, and a lot of people suspected that something was very off. Really, though... what can be done with that? This person was eventually "outed" by a real life friend (or he outed himself under the guise of a real life friend... that's still unclear), and this was confirmed through phone conversations with the "informant" and "Juli" himself. Until something like that happens, mods can't really be expected to take any sort of action based on suspicion. I mean, then you'd have things happening like what I did to Juliet earlier in this thread... asking for proof of whatever, and I was out of line in doing that. Nobody has to "prove" anything to anybody... we can't go around demanding pictures of people. Some people simply don't want to post pictures or identifying information about themselves, and they have that right.

It sucks, yes... this is the kind of person we warn our kids about... some sort of internet monster. This guy got in deep and knew several of us intimately. He has a fascination with pregnancy and kids... talked about pregnancy and asked us about our kids ALL. THE. TIME. It's creepy. Through FB, he had access to pictures of our kids... also through the post a pic thread--several people have posted pictures of their kids in that thread.

All that said, we still can't expect mods to take any sort of action based on hunches. So then, the responsibility lies with us... moving forward, be more cautious about who you let in, who you open up to, who you share intimate details with, etc.

He did most of his work offsite... through private IMs. He was smart enough to not really post anything false here.

 

Were these private IM through FB or PM here at TFN ?

 

Neither

Well, actually... that's probably not true. I'm sure there were private conversations here and on FB, but the majority were via aim, I'm pretty sure. I know the majority of the more personal talks I had with "Juli" were via IM.