Our society has a long tradition of writing, reading and enjoying satire even to the point that in most countries those producing satirical pieces are protected under the law. Given that most satire is a method of poking fun; in varying degrees of nastiness, humor or light-heartedness depending on who is doing the poking and who is being poked, you can take much of what is being said by the writer with a grain of salt. Satire is more of a commentary on something or someone rather than actual news or editorial content.
On the Internet; especially since the explosion of blogs, satire has found a new outlet with some of the notables being The Onion and the many Fake [insert famous person's name] blogs of which The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs (FSJ) is probably the most famous. Up until recently the real author was unknown but then he was outed which is when we discovered that Fake Steve’s real identity was David Lyons from Forbes.com. Now I am not a regular reader of FSJ which is why I only came across the reason for this post in a round about way.
It appears from the last few posts on FSJ that David (aka Fake Steve) has received an email from lawyers purporting to be from Apple’s legal department with an offer of money payable to David if he would shutdown the FSJ blog. Apparently they don’t like the idea of of someone impersonating the illustrious leader and becoming famous in the process. According to Fake Steve their latest email to him also held an implied threat against his financial security along with an attached list of his assets and their worth.
Of course one’s immediate reaction is one of total outrage; which after all would be a normal reaction except for one thing. FSJ is a satire site where one has to always question the authenticity of what is written. It’s not like FSJ isn’t known for well stirring any pot of controversy he can. So once one steps back and gets the outrage under control one has to question the veracity of these posts. Is this a case of the boy calling wolf or is it in fact true events.
If in fact this is the truth and David Lyons (aka Fake Steve) is being threatened in this manner then my support for him is there and I truly hope that he doesn’t bow to the pressure. That said if this is true then we are seeing the first of what could be a concerted move after their success against ThinkSecret by Apple against any site or blog that talks smack against Apple. Regardless of how all those bloggers who said the whole ThinkSecret mess didn’t amount to a hill of beans the fact is that Apple now figures it has carte blanche to do as it wishes against anyone who posts about Apple.
So David if this in fact true then I am afraid you have just stepped into it and not only your future is at stake as a blogger but so is the future of any blogger. If you let Apple pressure you into closing without a fight it will open the doors to any company to do the same.
The ThinkSecret mess has changed the rules of the game and FSJ is the new line in the sand.
Listening to: Mind in a Box - Dreamweb - Tape Evidence
Conversation Tags: Apple, Steve Jobs, Fake Steve Jobs, David Lyons, ThinkSecret
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