Italian soccer star to sue Facebook
One of the world's most famous soccer players, Alessandro del Piero of the Juventus club in Italy, is said to be suing Facebook.
He is distressed because of a Facebook profile that purports to be his (it features his name and image) and carries links to Nazi propaganda sites.
Del Piero, who is as handsome as David Beckham (research conducted by me among females in the last 30 minutes) and a somewhat more accomplished player (no research needed), claims that he has never had a Facebook profile.
Fascist symbolism has a long history in Italian soccer. If you've ever been to a home game of the Lazio club in Rome, you might believe that, for certain fans, Mussolini is alive and well, and living on the Mediterranean coast.
(Credit:
CC El Relativista)
One of the more famous incidents of fascist-forward behavior involved Italian star Paulo di Canio, who repeatedly made straight-armed salutes to Lazio fans.
You might find di Canio's explanation highly intellectual: "I'm a fascist, not a racist." He also went on to explain that Mussolini was both "misunderstood" and "basically a very principled and ethical individual."
Indeed, not many years before Di Canio's time at Lazio, the club's fans displayed a banner that taunted supporters of the rival AS Roma team: "Team of blacks, crowd of Jews."
It is against this background that Del Piero is trying to protect his image, which has been carefully honed over an extremely successful and media-friendly career.
It will be interesting to see how Facebook responds to the star's concerns.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Soccer...bump into another player , and you get carted off on a stretcher. Puleeze !
Incidentally, a recent court case in the U.S. about a mother who created a bogus account which indirectly led to a teenager's suicide, has determined that violating a website's TOS = the Federal crime of hacking. The bogus account holder better hope he isn't in the U.S.
Now, why would Facebook do this?
One only needs to look at the case of Sully Sullenberger (the "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot) to understand. How many eyeballs has his Facebook profile brought to Facebook? How many new signups as a result the public being directed to his profile as a result of publicity?
Please correct me if I'm wrong on this, as I'm not on Facebook (and don't want to be, thank you!) But multiple news reports describe the Sullenberger profile as either a "tribute" or a "fan club". That implies to me that he himself had nothing to do with setting up that profile, and doesn't control it.
Now, in fairness, when I view his profile, the list of his connections is titled "fans", (577,049 of them at last count) not "friends". (But that's awfully subtle. It took me a while to catch it.) So, I guess there is some special category of profile for this. Does anyone know if the Alessandro del Piero profile in question is such a profile? (As a non-member, when I search for that name, I get maybe 20 profiles using that name. I clicked a few of them, and they were private to me as a non-member.)
I note that when I view the Sullenberger profile, a link at the top of the page urges me to "Browse more celebrities/public figures". It strikes me that Facebook is consciously trading on the fame of these people. What is their legal responsibility to insure accuracy? The whole concept of a site that touts the fact that it has "real people" who are required to give their legal names and then permits 3rd-party profiles in the case of celebrities boggles the mind!
Now, what if whoever put up the fan club for Sullenberger added an insensitive comment, say "I was really aiming for the George Washington Bridge and missed!". Maybe Facebook users would understand that this is only a fan profile, would direct their rightful anger at whoever (and who is that, oh Facebook-of-transparency?) set it up, and upon notification Facebook would take it down. But what of the public (non-members) that wandered into the profile (as I did) through links from new stories, Google searches, etc.? Would they clearly understand that Sullenberger didn't say that?
It seems to me that Facebook is playing fast and loose with their "principles". (Quotes to be intonated...)
Firstly, in the first paragraph I said that Facebook apparently "unofficially" permits tribute or fan profiles for famous persons. That was before I noticed that Sullenberger's profile lists "fans", not "friends". Sorry, I didn't catch and correct that. It seems to me this is more than "unofficial".
Second, I asked rhetorically who set-up Sullenberger's profile, implying a lack of transparency in Facebook's policies, contrary to their popular image of having "real" profiles with correct legal names. From doing a bit more reading on that page, I now know that the page was set up by "Adam". But that's only because "Adam" stated so (don't know if Facebook policy requires that) in "About this Fan Page".
Following links around further gives me mixed feelings and a bit of queasiness in the stomach. "Adam" it turns out, works for a company that is somehow involved in "branding", and, in particular, branding using social media. Of course, Adam links to a page at his company entitled "Anatomy of a Hero on Facebook" where he explores "Captain Sully as a brand".
Sorry, gotta go. Don't want to make a mess on the carpet.
Hmm, I think many would differ with your assessment of intelligence...Berlusconi would like to keep Beckham to sell more shirts. Even the Milan fans have been booing him mercilessly...
Beckham is a splendidly one-paced player whose only strength is free-kicks and corners.
The number of caps mean nothing....have you noticed how splendidly England have played over the last few years?
Chris
- by derek328 February 8, 2009 4:26 AM PST
- Honestly, shouldn't he be suing whoever created that profile, instead of the entire Facebook network?
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