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July 1, 2004
The NY Times on distributed alibis
Posted by Clay Shirky
Times article on
groups that offer to provide alibis for one another, using
SMS to coordinate, and usually using the phone to create the alibi:
There is nothing new about making excuses or telling fibs. But the lure of alibi networks, their members say, lies partly with the anonymity of the Internet, which lets people find collaborators who disappear as quickly as they appeared. Engaging a freelance deceiver is also less risky than dragging a friend into a ruse. Cellphone-based alibi clubs, which have sprung up in the United States, Europe and Asia, allow people to send out mass text messages to thousands of potential collaborators asking for help. When a willing helper responds, the sender and the helper devise a lie, and the helper then calls the victim with the excuse — not unlike having a friend forge a doctor’s note for a teacher in the pre-digital age.
As
danah and
David have both pointed out, we require a certain degree of flex in our social arrangements, and when technology gets too efficient at making sure we could have called or written, new social structures get invented to take the edge off.
Comments (2)
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1. Russell Buckley on July 1, 2004 10:25 AM writes...
I think that this is *one* of the reasons why some services on cellphones are slow to take off. Location-based services and video spring to mind - for instance, the Hutchison 3 (3G) network spent millions of advertising dollars concentrating on the video calling feature of their new service. And take up of 3 has been decidedly lacklustre.
In other words, if you've got video calling, many of those "white lies" and alibis we use cellphones for are no longer possible. You can't call your SO and pretend you're in a meeting, if she can see you're in a bar.
And if you refuse to switch on the video element, you're hiding something.
Having said that, companies are already starting who will provide you with a visual alibi (ie artificial backdrop), so maybe this will overcome some of the user apathy.
On the other hand, it still leaves the *other* reasons why video calling hasn't happened :-)
Permalink to Comment2. Bill Seitz on July 1, 2004 11:54 AM writes...
So who wants to kill my wife?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044079/
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