fake twitter/facebook profiles illegal

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yuxek

147 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#57261 7-Feb-2010 22:06

Surely this can't be true:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10624639

My gosh what about all those comedians dressing up as famous people on stage. Maybe a "this is a fake profile" would make it okay?

oldmaknz

536 posts

Ultimate Geek

#296922 7-Feb-2010 22:10

There's a fine line between parody (joking) and serious. Serious impersonation can be reported and dealt with, and yes it is illegal [for serious impersonation, anyway].

savag3

188 posts

Master Geek

Subscriber

#296932 7-Feb-2010 22:34

The particular section which I believe makes it an offence is s249 Crimes Act 1961

249 Accessing computer system for dishonest purpose

(1) Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who, directly or indirectly, accesses any computer system and thereby, dishonestly or by deception, and without claim of right,—
(a) obtains any property, privilege, service, pecuniary advantage, benefit, or valuable consideration; or
(b) causes loss to any other person.

(2) Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years who, directly or indirectly, accesses any computer system with intent, dishonestly or by deception, and without claim of right,—
(a) to obtain any property, privilege, service, pecuniary advantage, benefit, or valuable consideration; or
(b) to cause loss to any other person.

(3) In this section, deception has the same meaning as in section 240(2).

This is a pretty broad section and applies to a lot of activity which some people might not realise is criminal offending.

You could make a case that filling in false details on a website e.g using bugmenot.com is covered by this section.

In relation to fake profiles there are other things in play as well such as the interface between the Crimes Act and the Bill of Rights Act. This is reasonably complex law and I wouldn't like to try and predict what the result would be if a case ended up in court.

richms

23073 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#296940 8-Feb-2010 00:08

I thought that using a fake name was fine as long as its not for fraudualant purposes? Thats what I was told when asking if it wasnt legal to register my prepays under made up names.

Richard rich.ms

yuxek

147 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#297070 8-Feb-2010 14:43

isn't twitter and facebook servers located in the usa though so shouldn't twitter/facebook take down fake profiles by using their own country's laws instead of nz laws?

cyberbrains

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#297650 10-Feb-2010 13:26

Social networking sites are useless when it comes to "fake accounts"! Personally I think they should be like forums cut out all this nonsense. If someone was posing as me if I were famous and saying a whole lot of donkey's poos I would be hacked off for sure.

Ragnor

8035 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#297671 10-Feb-2010 14:45

It's not that simple tons of people have the same first name and last name or the same/similar brand/company names, who do you think should get the right to use the that particular Twitter name... the first person to register it? The most famous person with that name?

It's one of the flaws of twitter, you only have

twitter.com/johnsmith

Instead of...

twitter.com/1234/johnsmith
twitter.com/1235/johnsmith
twitter.com/1236/johnsmith

savag3

188 posts

Master Geek

Subscriber

#298726 13-Feb-2010 21:26

richms: I thought that using a fake name was fine as long as its not for fraudualant purposes? Thats what I was told when asking if it wasnt legal to register my prepays under made up names.

I'm not quite sure I would agree with that. The law basically says it is an offence to access a computer system dishonestly or by deception (basically means any misrepresentation which would include using a false name) and without claim of right (means that you believe the action is lawful - however excludes errors relating to the law) to obtain any benefit (such as a $10 account credit but its much wider than just that - the benefit dosen't have to be financial) or cause a loss to someone else.
The claim of right might apply but if it was me I wouldn't be doing it.
Hope this makes sense.

Adamal

544 posts

Ultimate Geek

#298774 14-Feb-2010 03:44

I had some porn spam profile try to add me as a friend on Facebook. Was one of those "Hey, I just love getting naked, come see me at my website!" kinds of things.