For some of you, you must have seen that Facebook seemed to be down for the past few days. Today, we learn that it wasn't down. It was just that ISPs were banning access to Facebook from Mauritius. Why? Read below.
Apparently, somebody usurped our dear Prime Minister, Dr. Navinchandra Ramgoolam's identity and registered a Facebook account under his name! I didn't confirm it, but apparently, some other politicians also seem have their accounts.
In case you don't know, usurpation of identity is a criminal act.
The ICTA was investigating, and access to Facebook was banned from Mauritius by our local ISPs. Radio Plus just announced the news today. Pascal Grosset has noticed that earlier. For my part, I didn't know about what had happened until today, and thought I might share it with you folks, in case you didn't know too.
And yes, TheMediaGuru has completely reviewed the affair, IMHO. Give it a check.
Ur views on that?
Labels: News
I've come across Navin's profile on facebook. Rather lame i should say. Lame but it was interesting to see how young people are affected by politics. At least they're not indifferent, and that's good. There were some insults on Navin's profile comment but that was to be expected I think. Though, usurpation of identity is unethical behavious,... putting down facebook could be viewed as Denial of Service (DoS). The correct procedure could have been for ICTA (or any regulating body) to file a complaint to facebook and the account would have been deleted instantly. But again, this is mauritius. We never tackle problems, we only bypass them. You can also find Rama Sithanen, Mahen Gowressoo ek some other politician folks online. (Cool, our ministers are on web 2.0!)
In one word, I'd say this is just a gross blowup of a simple issue. ICTA just had to file a complaint, get the IP of the person who first registered the profile, and follow up the matter locally. Instead, they made a huge fuss.