strange facebook befriending

[piranha]

so, i have a friend request sitting here with which i don't know what to do. it's definitely NOT the person it purports to be, *snicker*, since that person is a japanese actor whom i most definitely don't know personally.

normally i would just friend right back because i don't generally care about "real" names (obviously), and i figure this has got to be somebody who knows me from somewhere, since i am here under a pseudo myself, and i can always figure it out later. i looked at their existing friends list and i only recognize one entry, and that's a very obvious pseudo (mina de malfois). i have a bit of a suspicion who it is.

i am mildly uncomfortable about someone using as their pseudo the name of another real person. even though that person is terribly unlikely to ever really be on facebook themselves, and i know that of course multiple people can share a name (though probably not a likeness at the same time; the facebooker uses a photo of the actor). maybe this is some kind of subversive stunt, but if so i'd like to know.

so, urm. i've got to think about this. what would you do?

Comments

identity-hijack

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

exactly, my discomfort is with the identity-hijack. if it were just a pseudo or a real-sounding name i didn't recognize, i'd simply send a note asking from where we know each other. but even if this is the person i think it is, and we do know each other, and i'd have no objections adding zir under zir LJ pseudo, or indeed any other pseudo, i am feeling uncomfortable because zie's pretending to be the japanese actor. and i don't really want to support that kind of thing because i dislike identity hijacks even if no harm is meant. i feel by approving the friend request i'd be giving tacit approval to something i think is ethically wrong.

on LJ that bothers me a lot less because there isn't any presumption on LJ that you are who you claim you are. it still bothers me a little, but i wouldn't refuse friending the person.

funny that you'd mention RPS -- i also dislike that, while this person likes it. clearly we have differing ethics about these issues. :)

encountering an identity-hijack

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

First, I always like it that you put a subject title on your comments so I know what they are in my inbox. I keep meaning to start doing that myself and I keep forgetting.

I'm sure you know that I'm more confrontation-avoidant than you are. But in a case like this, I might find some way of telling the person why I wasn't adding them ... maybe it's never occurred to them that some people might object.

Actually, on LJ I think there is some rule against using it to play a role -- I noticed it when I was thinking of writing some fiction with a diaristic structure (is there a word equivalent to 'epistolary' but for a fictional diary?) -- but I think there's this whole game of people pretending to be world leaders on LJ or something.