There is a website called YouTube, which allows people to post videos for others to view and shows about 100 million videos per day. Interestingly, one video has entered the news, hitting the New York Times "most popular" emailed articles of the month. The video everyone is talking about it a guitar ensemble--noted to be one of the most amazing solo performances ever posted--and the discussion regards the guitar genius who remained unknown through 7.35 million views and eight months of suspense. In the video, the Asian guitarist's image is blurry; his faceis obscured by his hat and the video quality is poor. However, his fingers play and his sound fascinates. The video has climbed to YouTube's ten most-viewed videos of all time. The video was called simply "guitar" and the performer referred to himseld as "funtwo" with a placard. On August 27th Jeong-Hyun Lim revealed himself to the public with a feature in the New York Times.
The Times article discusses a few potential reasons the virtuoso chose to remain anonymous. First, along with praise for such incredible mastery come requests for "tabs," which are written music. Once a musician receives complicated tabs, he or she is free to interpret the music and imitate, which is in fact what Lim initally did from another popular performer on YouTube, Jerry C. Another reason for masking was humilty; many musicians are self-deprecating and display anti-showmanship online. The video got some criticism because it was considered to be a fraud, and a slew of imitators claimed to be "funtwo" with their renditions of his masterpiece. It was time to come out.
The public who was enamored with Lim's talnet probably felt like they couldn't direct their awe to a person, and therefore the suggestion of fraud may have entered their minds. Nyberg's definitions of truth--the rational
Coherence Theory, the harmoniuous
Correspondence Theory, and
Pragmatic Theory's need for confirmation--all point towards "funtwo's" deception. Lim self-consciously and deliberatly made the effort to remain veiled and unkown to the public. Since his audience certainly wanted to know who the master was and, I wouldn't consider anonymity a "white" or "justifieable" lie. Basically, the wizard guitar player made himself a secret. Lim's deception (and his imitators' after him) was strategic and ordinary--hiding behind low-quality video, head down, baseball cap on. However, Lim never affected his audience's view of him by remaining anonymous, besides potentially leading them to doubt him and his ability. I don't think it was ever an intention to be called a fraud. I do think Lim intended to be unknown, but I can't determine if that is necessarily intention to deceive from Nyberg.
Vrij's defintion of a lie helps a bit. Jeong-Hyun Lim deliberately, successfully, and without forewarning let his audience not know who he was, an untruth. He made the decision not to show his full or real name, his face wasn't clear from the video post, his awed audience had no idea what to expect, and he chose to remain anonymous for eight months and over seven million views. Vrij continues to help explain Lim's possible reasoning for deceit--"to protect [himself] from embarrassment or disapproval." (Page 8) Granted the piece he played is considered the best guitar solo over recorded, but many musicians including Lim and Jerry C. post their videos in hopes of gaining constructive criticism. Lim was deceptive in his anonymity, not for choosing to protect himself from embarrassment. I would consider his lie subtle, according to Vrij, but only from deduction because he wasn't outright or exaggerating. He definitely seems like an adaptor, "anxious and insecure...motivated to make a positive impression...relatively relaxed when [he was] lying." (Page 16)
Essentially, Lim lied. The now unmasked quitar qizard can finally receive the acclaim and praise he deserves...without deception or doubt. Anonymity was deceptive and even lead to dubious remarks regarding fraud in his video. Jeong-Hyun Lim hit the charts on YouTube and The New York Times website, feats I'm sure he isn't embarrassed about!
The word Enron has become synonymous with deception ever since the news
story about the scandal broke. The chief executive Kenneth Lay insisted
everything was fine when the media started inquiring about his companies’
financial problems, but in actuality he was deceiving the nation, just as
he had been deceiving his stock holders for the last twenty years. The
scandal started with the company trading natural gas futures and in effect
it became an energy "bank", providing guaranteed quantities at set prices.
In the early years, when prices were favorable, it raked in the profits.
Executives soon realized that if it worked for gas, than it could also
work for water, steel, and basically anything else. By inventing new
markets and dominating them before regulators knew what was going on, the
money continued to flood in. The company even earned the title of
"America's most innovative company" from Forbes for six consecutive years.
Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling deceived their employees, stock holders,
and everyone else involved in the business world. Their deception caused
thousands of people to lose their jobs, their savings, and their
retirement plans. People deceive each other for various reasons.
Sometimes deception is used to benefit the other party, for example
telling a harmless lie to someone in order to protect their feelings. In
Enron’s case, deception was not used to benefit the other party, but
instead it was used to benefit Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. The deception
did not stop at Lay and Skilling, Enron executives and their families also
benefited to the tune of millions of dollars at the same time as they were
making even more by selling Enron's inflated shares. A person usually
has a motivation for lying; most people do not just lie for the fun of it.
The Enron executives deceived their company out of pure greed. All of
the company scandals that have arisen over the past few years deal with
greed. The desire to make more and more money caused the executives of
large corporations to deceive their employees and their country. Overall
deception can take many different forms, some good, and some bad. In
Enron’s case, the deception that was used caused thousands of people to
lose their jobs and left many families penniless.
White Collar Lies
While exaggerations and even outright lies on resumes are certainly nothing new for corporate America, they seem to be taking an increasing prominent place in major debates around the country. Take, for instance,
this Boston Globe article from early August which describes the potential falsification of former Big Dig Safety Official John J. Keaveney’s resume. While not yet confirmed, it appears that he lied about both his schooling and military service in Ireland.
So what’s the big deal? In a 1998 study conducted by Robinson, Sheppard, and Heywood, 83% of participants said that they would lie in order to get a job (Vrij, 8). The subjects even claimed that employers expected them to exaggerated qualities. If job applicants lie so readily, why do we make such a big issue over the few that surface in the media? The problems arise when the subject-in-question’s credibility is at stake for other reasons. In Keaveney’s case, he had anonymously submitted a memo to the Globe which he claimed to have written about the safety and reliability of tunnel ceilings in 1999 -- seven years before the tragic death by ceiling collapse of a motorist this past July. Modern Continental, his employer at the time and the major contractor for that particular tunnel, claims it has no record of the memo and believes it to be fabricated. Here’s where it gets tricky. If the public believes Keaveney and his memo, then Modern Continental is liable for covering up safety issues with the tunnel. If true, the company could be responsible for millions of dollars worth of repairs. However, if the public does not believe Keaveney, then Modern Continental can walk away without accepting any responsibility for July’s death. This is where Keaveney’s credibility comes into play.
By lying on his resume Keaveney was deliberately attempting, without forewarning, to create in others a belief that his credibility is greater than it actually is. However, when the public learned about the resume falsifications his credibility was practically destroyed. It casts doubt on his alleged memo and lends more credibility to Modern Continental’s version of the story. In fact the Boston Globe has publicly written an apology for publishing the memo in the first place. For the most part, Modern Continental is off the hook in the public eye over July’s death.
So who did John Keaveney’s resume lies hurt? If the memo were true, then they hurt the family of the woman who died in July and have put the whole city of Boston at risk. If false, then they have only hurt him. In either case, rather mundane and apparently common lies have cast him to the forefront of the American media and the debate over white collar deception.
Assignment 1 - Liar Liar Pants on Fire
New York Times Article (link)The Associated Press reported a story, yesterday, on Greg Anderson being held in contempt of court and being ordered to 16 months in jail. Anderson is the former trainer of Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield, and according to the book
Game of Shadows, knowingly sold the pair illegal/banned, performance-enhancing drugs. The report goes on to explain that both Bonds and Sheffield denied under oath that they knowingly took these drugs – and that they thought the drugs were legal – but
Shadows goes into great detail about how their testimonies and interviews are inaccurate or untrue (and that they really did know what they were taking and the ramifications of doing so).
According to Vrij, deception is "a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which the communicator considers untrue.” Assuming the overwhelming evidence against the players’ testimony and media responses in
Shadows is true (and temporarily ignoring Nyberg’s discussion of truth), Bonds and Sheffield have clearly lied.
Vrij believes that deception "is part of social interaction” and that it is hard to detect liars because (1) we are untrained/uneducated in doing so, (2) not motivated to catch liars and (3) some people are very good liars. Only the third point seems to apply in this case. Interestingly, both players have proved for years that they are very good at speaking their minds, regardless of how (un)true or arrogant they sound. What’s more, neither has ever shown much affinity for the news media, treating reporters and questions like distant, irrelevant people. So how could they lie in this situation? Perhaps the court/mass-media is viewed by the pair as a "distant group of people”, which according to Vrij’s (and others’) studies, means they would be more likely to lie in these interactions. Motivationally-speaking, it would seem the pair has numerous reasons to choose to lie: it would have a (1) positive impact on baseball, allow them to (2) obtain an advantage in the eyes of the baseball Hall of Fame Selection Committee, and (3) avoid punishment (for cheating). The pair used outright (to the media: "I never took performance enhancing drugs”) and subtle (court: "I never
knowingly took steroids”).
However, they have been able to lie in quite a complex situation – with federal officials, congressmen, lawyers, reporters and other athletes all critiquing different aspects of their case – and the consequences being very severe (prison, banishment from baseball, eternal ridicule) which makes their self-oriented lies very impressive.
Assignment 1 - Deception Example
Recently, John Mark Karr unexpectedly confessed to being the killer of JonBenet Ramsay, a young girl who was murdered ten years ago. The public was shocked to hear the news, the confession of the murderer, of this unresolved case. Today, however, the charges were dropped, and it was determined by the District Attorney that Karr was not actually the girl’s murderer – he had deceived everyone involved.
In the last few days, Karr repeatedly stated that he was guilty. He “told an international audience that he was present when Ramsay, a 6-year-old beauty pageant queen, was killed a decade ago.” He also “claimed to have killed Ramsey during sex.” We have now found out that he was actually being deceptive. His family stated that Karr was in fact with them during this time period, and the courts showed that his DNA did not match the DNA recovered at the crime scene.
Although it seems obvious at first, it isn’t immediately clear if Karr’s stories should be considered deception based on Vrij and Nyberg’s descriptions. Vrij describes deception as “a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue.” (pg. 6) Karr’s stories were definitely an unsuccessful attempt to create this false belief, but we can not know for certain what Karr himself believes to be the truth. Karr may have created a false memory or illusion about the past, and may have believe that what he was saying was in fact the truth – according to Vrij, this would not be deception (this could have been self-deception, which Vrij does not discuss, or some sort of false report). But if he was aware of the truth, then this would have been deception. We can not determine this without knowing what Karr himself actually believed to be truth.
Nyberg does not give a straightforward definition of deception, but we run into the same problem with his description of deception. His statements are what Nyberg calls straightforward lying, but he also requires an “intention to deceive” (pg. 75). We can’t be certain if Karr intended to deceive the public, or if he himself actually believed his falsehoods. Although we can’t determine if Karr was being deceptive, both authors would agree that Karr was certainly lying – saying that something is true when it is not true.
Link to LA Times article
Digital DeceptionEver ‘Googled’ something thinking it would stay between you and your computer? Last year we found out that the Department of Justice didn’t want it to stay that way when they subpoenaed the search records of millions of Google’s users. Perhaps even scarier than that is the story attached, about the time earlier this month when AOL accidentally released search records of nearly 600,000 of its users.
Online search engines have engaged in a certain amount of deception. According to Nyberg, deception is the art of showing and hiding. Within the category of hiding, the behavior of these companies would fall under the subcategory of disguise: from all outward appearances, Google and others like it make searches appear to be both completely anonymous and transient. But given that a New York Times reporter was able to take the search information released by AOL and find the individual attached to them, 62-year-old Thelma Arnold from Lilburn, GA, this is clearly not the case.
Vrij’s definition would also support the conclusion that this is deception. According to Vrij, deception is “a deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue.” While it would difficult to get inside the heads of the makers of these products and see if they had intentionally tried to deceive the public, there is no disclaimer before a search is conducted saying, “this search will be monitored for market research and national security purposes.”
Search engines hide their monitoring practices without any forewarning to the user. By both Vrij and Nyberg’s definitions, theirs would be deceptive actions.
Your first assignment
Hi all,
Good luck with your first post. This posting is primarily about practicing posting and making sure that the blog is working for you, as well as to learn how to include links in your post.
Remember that we prefer everyone to use their own name when posting, but if you'd like to use a psuedonym you can. Just let us know.
Alex has already posted. Nice job getting it up early. As Alex has done, briefly summarize your news story on deception and discuss the deception (or non-deception) in terms of Nyberg and/or Vrij's conceptualizations of deception. The main purpose here is to prepare yourselves for our discussion on Tuesday and Thursday: what is deception, what is truth?
Lastly, we're working on getting the BlackBoard site up and running. We'll have it ready soon. From there you will be able to get the weekly readings.
See you soon,
Jeff
