There was once a girl who frequently bullied me in school. Let's call her GAL. GAL had been rather active on Livejournal. Months ago, a politician had to apologize and quit politics because he kept a subordinate as a mistress. Netizens circulated rumors that the politician, the subordinate and the subordinate's sister were involved in a menage a trois. One netizen re-posted GAL's Livejournal photos on a gossip site, boasting that he had found photos of the subordinate's sister. (GAL and the subordinate's sister shared the same name. Same surname. Same personal name.) Some netizens replied that they would like to sleep with GAL because GAL seemed so pretty in all her photos. GAL's sibling discovered the thread. She left a note telling those involved to delete their posts. Some did but some didn't. (Maybe they didn't go online, so they didn't see the note?) The next day, another of GAL's siblings posted a scanned copy of the police report that he had made. He added that his family had already found a lawyer and would be suing netizens for defamation soon. (I suspect that this threat is merely an empty threat.) GAL made her Livejournal friends-only. If I'm not wrong, GAL's family later sold GAL's story to a tabloid.
Q1. Do you think that GAL's family had overreacted?
Q2. Some say that GAL's family "overreacted" to gain publicity from the politician's scandal. Do you agree?
Q3. If you were GAL, how would you react upon discovering that netizens had mistaken you for somebody else?
28 Dec 2012, 10:55 pm
