How Catfishing (Sock-Puppetry) Might Affect Autistics

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It depends what the sock puppet is used for.

Ie I once created a sock puppet profile. I felt I was being bullied on a forum and needed to confirm if it was in my imagination or not. Ergo I posted two threads to said forum board, both with similar questions (pretty much the same subject but worded differently) with one under my known profile and one under the unknown one.

The responses were quite different...the replies to my known profile were nothing more than personal attacks (name calling, insults, accusations that were slanderous) whilst the replies to the unknown profile were nice and supportive and helpful.

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On the other hand I have seen people use sock puppets for much more malicious reasons than running an experiment to clarify something. On one occasion during a time when I was receiving threats from people on a forum board whereby they were threatening to inform the disability benefits board that I was faking my disability (I most certainly am not...I receive my disability because I don't cope well with social interaction and change and I sat in front of 3 drs and through a tribunal hearing to get it) I received an email from a profile that was clearly a sock puppet (it's only content was the sentence "I know you but you don't know me" in the about them section) asking me to confirm my if the name they had for me was the right one and asking where I lived.

Given the circumstances I didn't reply.

Sock puppets can be both threatening and confusing depending on what they are used for.

yeah,it isnt a popular idea for privacy reasons and can understand why people [who are who they say they are] woud just avoid a website instead of including their photos but there are ways it coud be done without everyone else seeing their photo,it coud be something only a websites administration team see,for example and the picture coud be deleted then the user have their account verified.
its got its flaws of course but am personaly a fan of the idea as am not arsed who sees self-plus we all get seen by people we dont know IRL without our choice,its no different to being online;just another format.
in own view having a photo 'attached' to an account makes it likelier someone will feel more personal responsibility for themselves and what they write than if they were the anonymous them,have noticed on various forums that users seem to be more responsible when they use real photos of themselves [not including SPs who just steal photos of other people off facebook and google images. ].

bumble,
moraly speaking there isnt anything wrong with that-its more of an alternative account than a sock puppet in that way,were trying to understand why were being targeted by bullies as opposed to trying to decieve and manipulate people though some forums have absolute rules against the use of SPs because of the damage they have suffered [wont mention a well known one for fear of sending more wasters SPs their way],some;such as deviant art for example dont have any issue at all with using SPs,some forums; such as many mental health support forums allow people with multiple personality disorder to have SPs-without thinking of the damage this kind of 'deciet' has on vulnerable individuals overall as well as many paranoid,trust or anxiety based mental illnesses.

People also create a sockpuppet because they forget their password or username due to not being there for a while. Or they forget they even had an account there once. Or they create one because they never got an email to activate their account. To me these things are nothing and not worth penalizing them about.

Sometimes people create one when they get tired of their username. Sometimes they create one to start over. Or they create one when they are banned. Sometimes people return to a forum a year later or more after being banned and they create a new account for it. On here some members have created an account after getting banned to contact the mods to reinstate their account or to find out why they are banned.

I admit this is my sockpuppet here because this isn't my first account and I am not the only member here who has had other accounts and are currently posting under their second or third account.

...What U said .
We're not all " Internet genii-geniuses " , either , even we Aspies...I sure ain't ! !! !! !! !! !!

I don't think I would ever create a sockpuppet, even just to start over again because I'm too easy to spot. I'd just be me all over the place again and in 10 minutes everyone would know. But the other thing about this forum is, I've noticed that if you screw up and then apologize and at least sound sincere, people usually forgive your discretion. I don't know the whole idea of having to keep everything separate (which I think some sockpupets aren't good at, they use the exact same voice) - how would you do that?

I am however wildly interested in the concept of double-life. In real life, I've know two guys who were masquerading as other people - once was a cop who worked undercover for the FBI with drug gangs. The other was a guy with 7 wives who of course had them all hidden from each until it all exploded. I'm interested in how it affects people to behave like that. The cop actually went on to have a double life in real life too after he left the gang. it was like he was just good a it.

7 wives all hidden from each other? Wow, how in the world did he manage that? That is quite amazing to me.

...I am reminded of this " New Wave "/" post-punk "-era band who had a song titled " Dancing With My Eighty Wives " !...If he was LEGALLY married to all of them , he was comitting fraud...


quote="skibum"]7 wives all hidden from each other? Wow, how in the world did he manage that? That is quite amazing to me.[/quote]

[/quote]

It was fraud. He was married to a family member of mine. She told us that at one point the fbi came around telling her they thought he was a serial killer, then later all the wives ended up on a episode of Murray Povitch, but she wouldn't go because she was scared of him,

I have had some rather ridiculous accusations come my way, yes. One I recall on this forum was waking up, checking Wrong Planet, responding to a thread, and being accused of waiting until the person I responded to had logged off before saying anything. At that point I just said I was going to ignore him, but it was utterly bizarre. Like, what possible benefit could I get from watching whether he was logged in or not - and at the time I didn't even know how to find that information.

In my case, I am speaking of forums I have moderated and thus had access to IP addresses and other information to help locate whether someone is a sockpuppet or not. I prefer not to accuse anyone, however.



Yeah, being stalked can be rather scary and anxiety-inducing, and might lead people to spurious conclusions out of fear more than malice.



I recall someone like this on another forum. She had a rather odd theory that most of the people she was interacting with were really two people engaging in mass sock puppetry to screw with her head. Given the theory, I do not think she needed any help getting her head screwed with.

Something about this sentence made me bust up laughing.

I don't think this is sockpuppeting.



A couple of the most pernicious sockpuppeteers I have seen did so serially, by creating accounts as soon as old ones were banned. This is distinct from trying to get clarification from mods, and different forums have different tolerance for such.



But this isn't a sockpuppet account. That you used to have a different account isn't exactly a secret even if it's not common knowledge. You're not trying to deceive anyone, and you're not using both accounts to boost your own arguments at the expense of others.

i think this is important.

i do think this would discourage people from registering on any web forum.

but i had not considered the vulnerability of this particular population either.

perhaps there is some way we can support help guide each other. if there is a member any individual trusts, perhaps that individual could reach out to that member for their take.

perhaps some of the more aspie-ish members might be able to assist some of the more autie-ish members.

i know the dividing line between autism and aspergerism is delicate material, and a grey division at best.

but i think this goes back to some of vicky's comments, as i've interpreted them, that we need to help each other.

No, that might invite harassment against those of us who are not photogenic.

Instead, enforce a limit of "One Member per IP Address" or "One Member per Email Account" with special attention to sequential accounts, like "[email protected]", "[email protected]", "[email protected]", et cetera.

My best jokes always seem to be unintentional.

that seems do-able, i hope that is the case.

You can legitimately have two or more people from the same IP address. Plus it's possible to spoof one's IP address via proxies and such.

The best way to handle sockpuppetry is through observation on a case by case basis. Hard and fast rules won't prevent it.