Facebook Scams of Narcissists

By Samuel López De Victoria, Ph.D.

Did you know that if you spend time at social network websites like Facebook you
might be a narcissist?

Of course not everyone who uses Facebook is one. A recent study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Buffardi and Cambell, 2008) found how social networking web sites such as Facebook can attract narcissists. Here are some of the positive traits narcissists can exhibit:

1. Initially likable.
2. Perceived as leaders.
3. Perceived as exciting.
4. Perceived as entertaining.
5. The capability to obtain sexual partners.

Narcissists can give the illusion of closeness, having empathy, and warmth yet they also are relational opportunists. They use their relationships to enhance themselves. In other words, they can be “show-offs.”

Narcissists are also known to be controllers, manipulators, aggressive, unfaithful, and given to playing mind-games.

The study reveals that social network websites can serve as a place to be shallow and not committed. Friendships can be superficial. These types of websites provide a forum where the narcissist can exercise high control of how he/she is perceived giving an edited image. Narcissists love to look at themselves, talk about themselves… any way they can be the center of the universe. One observation was that narcissists tend to post many pictures of themselves with others and at parties.

Other characteristics which raters evaluated were the amount of clothing worn versus modesty and physical presentation. They also considered if they were portrayed as fun, provocative, self-promoting, sexy, and self-centered. Narcissists tended to present themselves as important through the expression of their opinions. (sounds like Beckstead &  Dunetz) Their ability to persuade others enhanced their perceived image.

In the end, the study appears to show that narcissism is associated with such things as self-promotion, sexiness, attractiveness, and provocative pictures of themselves (this includes action shots of them doing some sort of sport or athletic activity).

The study could imply that websites such as Facebook may contain high numbers of narcissists because of easy access to having a large social network. Social networking websites can provide narcissists with forums where they pursue their addiction to grandiosity while maintaining shallow relationships. These sites can be fertile grounds for the narcissist to work in. Those looking for love and romance on these social sites need to be aware of the scams of a narcissist in a relationship that could end up extremely painful over time.


Reference
Buffardi, L. E., & Campell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1303+.

original article here

Back in Court With Second Lawsuit Against Dating Advice Site

By David Ardia


Pittsburgh lawyer Todd Hollis is back in court with a second lawsuit against the dating advice site Don'tDateHimGirl.com, whose users accused him of infidelity and infecting women with herpes. Hollis had previously filed a defamation lawsuit in Pennsylvania state court against the owner of the site back in June 2006. The Florida-based web site and its owner Tasha Joseph were able to have that case dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Acting as his own lawyer, Hollis filed a new complaint in federal court in Miami last week, alleging defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false light invasion of privacy. Hollis told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that

he reluctantly sued again in Miami because Ms. Cunningham refused to remove the numerous lies that her Web site has published about him. "I never wanted to file a lawsuit. I wanted my name cleared," he said yesterday.

Tasha Cunningham, formerly known as Tasha Joseph, launched DontDateHimGirl.com two years ago. The site allows anonymous users to post information and photos of men, often accusing them of infidelity and bad behavior. Cunningham told the Post-Gazette that she would not answer questions about herself or the lawsuit, but gave the paper a written statement:

DontDateHimGirl.com's mission is to empower women with the information and connections that help them make better life decisions. DDHG.com is fully protected [from defamation lawsuits] by the Communication Decency Act. ... Any attack or lawsuit put forth regarding DDHG.com will be dealt with strongly, swiftly and in a manner which will seek to end this type of erroneous, wasteful litigation.

As we've noted in a number of past posts, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act [7] grants immunity to website operators for these types of claims if the content is created by third-parties.

(Note: The Communications Decent Act governs EOPC as well.)

Update:

03/31/2008: Cunningham answered Hollis' complaint and filed a counterclaim against Hollis for defamation. The defamation claim arose from an telecopier document allegedly sent by an organization related to Hollis that stated as fact that Cunningham had been convicted of grand theft by the State of Florida.

04/14/2008: Defendants filed a motion for partial summary judgment. The motion argued that defendants were entitled to summary judgment on several of plaintiff's claims because certain examples of the disputed content were true and certain examples were entitled to protection under CDA 230.

03/2008 through 05/2008: Plaintiff and defendants filed a series of motions disputing discovery issues. These primarily concern defendants' requests for information from plaintiff and plaintiffs requests to depose individuals regarding defendants' reputation.

05/15/2008: Court dismissed Cunningham's counterclaim at Cunningham's request and granted Cunningham's request for protective orders that would prevent plaintiff from deposing certain individuals on the issue of defendants' reputation.

06/20/2008: The case has been dismissed with prejudice by stipulation of both parties. Details of the settlement are not yet available.

(as you can see - be careful about dragging people to court - because things about YOU will come out as well!)

Calling In Pros to Refine Your Google Image

By Susan Kinzie and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers

At the height of the cyber-abuse, Sue Scheff, a consultant to parents of troubled teens, would type her name in a Google search box and brace herself: Up would pop page after page of attack postings.

Sue Scheff is destroying lives. She is a con. She takes kickbacks. She is the biggest fraud there ever was.

The stream of negative comments began in 2002 after a woman who had sought advice from Scheff turned on her. The postings appeared on PTA Web sites in Florida, where Scheff lives. On bulletin boards and online forums. There were even YouTube videos threatening her.

She sued for defamation and won an $11.3 million verdict, but the attacks only got worse. In December, Scheff turned to ReputationDefender, a year-old firm that promised to help her cleanse her virtual reputation. She no longer dreads a Google search on her name. Most of the links on the all-important first page are to her own Web site and a half-dozen others created by ReputationDefender to promote her work on teen pregnancy and teen depression.

"They created Sue-Scheff.net," she said. "They created SueScheff.net. They
created SueScheff.org. . . . They created my MySpace account, for God's sake. I didn't know how to do any of this stuff."

Google's ubiquity as a research tool has given rise to a new industry: online identity management. The proliferation of blogs and Web sites can allow angry clients, jealous lovers or ruthless competitors to define a person's identity. Whether true or not, their words can have far-reaching effects.

Charging anything from a few dollars to thousands of dollars a month, companies such as International Reputation Management, Naymz and ReputationDefender don't promise to erase the bad stuff on the Web. But they do assure their clients of better results on an Internet search, pushing the positive items up on the first page and burying the others deep.

Still, Google is continually refining its search methods, which means that today's fix may not work tomorrow.

"This is a game that nobody can completely win," said Chris Dellarocas, a University of Maryland information systems professor.

Dodging Mudballs
The e-mails from friends started showing up three years ago in the Washington lobbyist's in-basket: Have you seen this?

Over decades in the capital, she had developed a thick skin. But after she took on a foreign regime as a client, an online magazine bashed her. The story was factual, but the tone nasty. Then a blogger wrote that she slept with someone to get a big contract. A political blog posted an e-mail she had written about secret campaign strategy. Truth mixed with rumor. Rumor mixed with lies.

Concerned friends sent her the links. Potential clients would say they had read about her on the Web.

Like Scheff, she realized that the items that made her cringe came up high on the Google results page and stayed there, month after month. Her firm depended on her reputation. The lobbyist would speak only on condition of anonymity because she did not want the attacks to resume.

"There's no policing, no rules, no standards," she said. Bloggers are "cowboys," she said. "It's the wild, wild West."

Then one day she heard a talk by Nino Kader, founder of International Reputation Management (IRM) in Washington. His new company, he said, could reshape a person's online image.

She signed up.

IRM aims to get lots of information out there about clients, in various places, so that a search gives a more complete and nuanced profile of who they are. Kader started with a printout of the top 100 hits on a Google search and went through them one by one, asking whether individual results -- such as her campaign contributions -- were good, bad or neutral.

He asked what she wanted the world to know about her. Then he started digging for good things, like an op-ed piece she had written and television interviews she had given that he could post on YouTube. He pitched stories about her to various publications. And he created links from popular sites to those online stories to entice the search engine.

Now her firm's Web site is the first result and other good ones follow.

Still, a story she hates remains on the first page.

"I'm in the early stages," she said. "I've already seen progress."

Companies like IRM try to outthink Google. Search engines comb the Web with complex and ever-shifting algorithms, evaluating relevance and authority by looking at many factors: Is this a government Web site? How many people have linked to it? And so on.

The point is, said ReputationDefender founder Michael Fertik, "Google's not in business to give you the truth, it's in business to give what you think is relevant."

The goal is to get Google and other search engines to seize on relevant sites that contain positive information on their clients and to downplay the rest.

Google does not object in principle to people adding positive content to outrank the negative. But a spokeswoman said in an e-mail, "if you use spammy and manipulative techniques to get this positive content to rank highly, we may take action on it."

Some companies create promotional Web pages for their clients with coding that makes them appealing to Google or create blog pages linking to the client's own site, ensuring they'll rise to the top.

Image Makeover
Geoffrey VanderPal knew politics was a nasty game, but the candidate for Nevada state treasurer wasn't prepared for the blog attacks. Supporters of his opponent posted charge after charge. He briefly considered suing.

But many of his tormentors were anonymous. And U.S. courts have generally protected Web site hosts from civil actions such as defamation, though that may be changing. Besides, he knew as a public figure he'd have a higher burden to prove libel.

When VanderPal lost the Democratic primary last August, he returned to private life as a financial planner. But the blog postings lived on, prominently, at the top of the Google results page. Potential clients avoided him.

He wanted to suppress the negative information about him, both true and false, so he turned to ReputationDefender.

The firm at first tried a low-tech approach: a polite request to a blogger to remove a post about his personal finances. But the blogger declined, saying the item was a matter of public record. Asking politely has backfired in a small number of cases, Fertik said, with Webmasters sometimes posting and mocking the requests.

So Fertik's team, which works from a Silicon Valley office, offered VanderPal its premium service, using various techniques to promote VanderPal's own site and suppress the blogs. That service now starts at $10,000.

Within weeks, VanderPal began to see "a remarkable difference." Though a few nasty comments are still up there, the first three pages are mostly clean.

"Everything's wrapped up in your reputation," said VanderPal, 34. "If you don't have that, you don't have much."

The reputation firms won't take on everyone. Fertik says ReputationDefender won't work with clients who want to suppress violent crimes, for example.

The clients the firms accept are varied: a real estate mogul wanting to move past a decade-old transgression, a prominent academic falsely accused of murder, a hedge fund manager who doesn't like seeing his old New York Times wedding announcement on Google years after he divorced and remarried, a college student who regretted once dressing up as a prostitute at a Halloween party.

Then there was the businessman who paid a Securities and Exchange Commission fine a few years ago.

"Does a person in this situation have a chance to start again?" Fertik asked. "Should this be the first or second thing that shows up on the Internet? Is it fair?"

ReputationDefender decided to work with him.

Staff researcher Bob Lyford contributed to this report.
Hat Tip To "Survivor" for this find!