April 13, 2007

The Battle Of Myspace, Part Deux

I spent the day out of the house because it was too nice to be stuck in here brooding. Went to the lake and took some pictures, then to Panera with Rain so she could have a bagel. I also found a SOGEKING & CHOPPER figurine set at the Tomodachi store for ten bucks and went over budget because it had to be mine. I will call it a reward for getting through this shitty week.

Got back home and noticed that the Shmorky V. Goliath Myspace shenanigans have het up considerable in my absence. Todd Goldman, or one of his friends, has begun hacking and vandalizing various MySpace accounts belonging to people who asked to be added during he first leg of the Battle. Indecent content created for the occasion and hosted on Cockface's own website is being uploaded to their userpages. I doubt he can explain that one away as an accident!

Far from ending with the civility of a settlement, it looks like :TODD: will be unsatisfied with anything short of a full-blown temper tantrum. I look forward to seeing how this plays out,and will keep an eye out for screenshots.

1 comment:

  1. I have to admit that, while reading your posts on this net-based fiasco, I can't help but think: these are the days of the internet. What kind of frickin' moron thinks there's any such thing as isolation? How much denial does one have to manage, to believe that posting X wouldn't get noticed, and that if X is damn well like Y, that someone wouldn't comment?

    When I was a kid, you could go to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, look up the entry, and 'rearrange' the information into your own words, write the report, and carry on. If the teacher didn't have the same version, how would she know? Now, the teacher just googles a phrase, and tadah, the teacher can find -- and prove -- you stole someone's work. Universities make a habit now of running papers through a google-like checker, to make sure students didn't plagiarize straight off the 'net. There is no isolation; there is no certainty that someone in location A will always remain ignorant of location B.

    Remember the whole stink about the Harvard girl who wrote the chicklit book that turned out to have major plot and description cribbed from another chicklit/YA author? The NY Times had an article quoting the three too-similar paragraphs the journalists found; within 24 hours, online denizens added over forty more passages proving the case. The information is out there; people will find it, and they will prove that you're not the original, and that news will be disseminated -- quite easily, at that.

    Sometimes it just boggles my mind, these folks who believe they'd be exempt from such attention.

    I wonder if the internal, if unconscious, logic of Goldman's reaction is distraction. The more he yells, the more folks focus on his hysterics, the less time they'll have to uncover the full extent of his plagiarism. A pointless effort, I think. It's not like we can't multitask, and I'd bet for every person entranced with his hysterics, two more are working diligently comb his back catalog. At least the world has changed, from the days when mudraking cast more mud on the investigators (be they journalists or private folks). Now, it seems, people are much less willing to be sympathetic with the person crying over invasive or intrusive investigation. Put yourself on the net, and you made yourself fair game.

    Still, the absolute hubris of this guy's shenigans just leaves me hornswaggled.

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