What’s a man got to do to get some privacy around here?
March 24, 2008
While reading the TechCrunch I came across a strange story about a guy who is serving a three year prison sentence for impersonating the Moroccan king’s younger brother, Prince Moulay Rachid, on Facebook. I did not understand why this is a crime at all, I mean we see kids impersonating a celebrity everyday on facebook here in North America with out any trouble. But that’s not why I found this story so strange for I don’t really know about the Moroccan policy and all, but how did the government got a hold of this guy?
My guess is that the government had some assistance from Facebook to identify this man. Especially after Facebook refused to comment specifically on the situation my suspicions turned up high. But why would Facebook even bother getting involved in this sort of situation at all? What’s in it for them?
Perhaps market penetration in Morocco? I don’t know but this really ticked me off that they would do such a thing if indeed they have.
As users I think we are too trusting. This sort of situations really proves me that companies are not looking out for us, but their own behinds.
If that’s is not the situation, another way of catching the guy might have been that the government actually recording all traffic all the time and just had to run a query on their archives.
Either way, so much for PRIVECY, unless I missed some other more legitimate way to find the IP address?
March 24, 2008 at 6:08 pm
That’s pretty crazy. I mean something like this happening to a Prince!!! That’s almost unheard of.
March 24, 2008 at 6:21 pm
thats a long prison sentence for impersonating. It must be considered a serious crime in other countries. I don’t think someone would get three years in jail in Canada for that haha.
March 24, 2008 at 8:04 pm
i know mitch and its only on facebook, hardly a crime!
March 25, 2008 at 11:33 am
Impersonating people on facebook is definitely becoming a larger problem as time goes on.
Celebs are the larger victims of this obviously.
Check out my post “Facebook and Identity Fraud”
March 25, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Yeah…it is very scary if someone setting up a Facebook account in the name of someone famous name.
March 26, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Yeah it is, Its funny how there are so many people with “numerous accounts” on facebook.
May 4, 2008 at 4:18 am
Don’t worry
Finally Fouad have been released , by the grace of the king .
About the penetration of Facebook in Morocco , I would say that they may be around 40 000 / 80 0000 Moroccan that have a Facebook account .