Facebook. One of the hottest social network service site today. It is easy to create an ID, the server finds your friends based on your information. And many interesting applications to play with. What are the problems? No identification is needed to create an ID. This is what the film "Catfish" focused on.
What the film showed was simple. There was a woman whose name was Angela who made a fake facebook ID and fooled a man named Nev. I don't see what the film was trying to show. Sure, it was interesting, but a documentary should have a message. What Angela did was a lie, and that is of course not recommendable, but nothing illegal happened. She never asked for money, nor did she take any advantage of Nev using her fake photos. He have not called her if he knew who really she was. But I believe the wrongdoings of the film is larger than what it tried to show.
Facebook is not tight in security, and never intended to be so. As its only purpose is to have fun and to contact friends, it needs no security. And the case of Angela is not only facebook's problems. In many internet sites where users are anonymous, many people pretend to be someone they are not. They do this because they don't consider themselves valuable as the way they are. They try to seek love online, and that is all they want. We should pity them, not call them names and punish them.
But "Catfish" portrayed as if it was a problem of facebook. This is a problem of an individual, not facebook. KMLA students are making IDs impersonating the dorm parent, the president, and anything else that might be funny. This is something we shouldn't do, but nevertheless unrelated with the necessity of prohibition of impersonation by law.
Furthermore, "Catfish" has many problems itself. First of all, I don't believe it's real. Whether everyone faked it, or the filmmakers researched Angela and knew beforehand she was a fake. If it was real, then the "Catfish" did some bad things. Show up in one's doorstep with a camera, film her, and tell the whole world she's a liar. I don't think what she did was bad enough to be announced globally. They would have gotten permission, but I don't think they got it from everyone that shows up in the film. And if they didn't get permission from some people, they might have just released it and payed back later, after millions of people saw the movie.
Debate motions
1. THB facebook should tighten its security.
2. THBT films made through unlawful means should be punished.
3. THBT the "Catfish" portrayed the flaws of the facebook successfully.
