Social networks destroyed my life
James, we’ll call him as he would like to remain anonymous was, just six months ago the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of one of the big four banks in this country. James had a mansion in Mosman, a beautiful blonde trophy wife, 2 adoring kids (both in top private schools) and played tennis every Sunday with an ex premier. Now he lives in a one bedroom apartment alone and despondent. Next week he may end up on the street with so many other “misfits”.
For James it all started when his boss, the CEO of the bank called him into his office. Angrily his boss shouts..
“James, have you read the papers this morning?”
James shrugs, wondering why his boss the CEO of the company is so angry.
“No? Well look, read the headline.”
Reading the headline, James’ eyes grow wider, panic and confusion fill them. Andrew, the CEO continues.
“What is this all about James?”
James, shudders in fear and starts stuttering…
“Umm ahh, well I dunno….who, what?”
Andrew, doesn’t hesitate and fires off…
“Look it doesn’t matter. We’re going to have to let you go. You’ve become embarassment to the company. We can’t stand behind you on this one. I thought better of you James.”
James leaves the office bewildered. Apparently a newspaper columnist has published photos of him being whipped in some sort of BDSM outfit. He’s never even considered getting involved in BDSM, a few hookers in his time maybe but he’d never have thought someone would have taken photos and linked him to a prominent madam.
“Who would do such a thing?” – he thinks to himself. His thoughts are racing as he leaves the CEO’s office.
James arrives home to find his wife and children have already left. He calls his beatiful wife but she doesn’t answer. She has no interest in him anymore. How could he be so disgusting? Over the coming days he tries to explain, explain what? He didn’t really do anything but his protests fall on deaf ears.
James finally pieces together what happened. Someone had set up fake accounts claiming to be him and filled them with fake friends, events and places he had never been to or associated with. He had heard of social networks before, like Facebook and Myspace but never in his wildest dreams had he thought that someone would create for him a completely falsfied identity and post connections and forge photos of him with strippers and what was that outfit? James couldn’t imagine ever pulling that off.
Someone out there was malicious enough to go to great lengths to create James an alter-identity. Something not real and something that would end up losing him his life, as he knew it. James began to suspect it was someone else in the company. Greg who had work for James got his job after he was let go. Did Greg set him up? Who knows. The important thing is this could happen to anyone, especially those who hesitate to claim their online identities.
In this case it was James but it could just as well have been the premier of New South Wales or the president of a small but influential country. If you’re still not convinced then take a look at twitter, there are many cases of people posing as various celebrities – Bill Gates and Hugh Jackman for example, who by the way has a lot more to say for himself than the real Hugh Jackman who only joined twitter to use it as a vehicle for promoting his latest movie. Most of these posers come clean fairly quickly and aren’t malicious in any way but that’s not the point. They could have been.
It is important to know that no matter how much we want to protect our identity and limit what is shared about our personal lives online there will always be a chance someone else will do it for us. Everyone needs to claim their name online. Signing up with sites such as twitter, facebook, myspace etc with your name and some basic details may be all it takes just to prevent what happened to James altogether.
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