President furious about Facebook fakery
The article given below has been re-written by Janet Hardy-Gould to use words and constructions appropriate to this level of learning and understanding.
There are hundreds of George Bushes, a number of Fidel Castros and dozens of Hugo Chávezes, all with fake profiles on the social networking web site Facebook. But when someone tried to impersonate the president of Guyana, the real president didn't see the joke.
Some world leaders, including Nicolas Sarkozy, have genuine Facebook profiles with thousands of supporters, but Bharrat Jagdeo, the leader of the SOuth American country of Guyana, is not one of them.
A fake profile of the president attracted almost 200 supporters before Jagdeo alerted the police. He issued a short statement saying that he is not, and never has been, a member of Facebook or any other social networking site.
It said: "The office of the president is concerned that someone has impersonated President Jagdeo on the web site Facebook." It added, "The public is asked to ignore this impersonation."
The bogus profile has since been taken down and Jagdeo has asked the Guyanan police to find the impersonator. The president;s profile had two photo albums: one of the famous Berbice bridge in Guyana and one of international leaders, some with Jagdeo.
Facebook said that members are banned from attempting to "impersonate any person or entity". The presidential impersonator has not been found.
Facebook was started in 2004 by college student Mark Zuckerberg and it now has 140 million users. But this is not the first time that it has met with controversy.
Last year Facebook removed two fake profiles of Bilawai Bhutto, the son of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani president assassinated in December 2007. And when a computer programmer in Morocco set up a bogus profile of the brother of Morocco's king, Mohammed VI, he was sent to prison for three years.
Lesson Plan
Focus: group discussion, reading
Materials: copies of the article
Time: 50
Write Facebook, MySpace and Bebo on the board. Elicit from students what they are and establish the phrase: social networking site. Ask: are you a member of a social netwroking site? Discuss as a class the positive and negative things about networking sites. - 15 mins
Tell the students they are going to read an article about fake or bogus profiles on Facbook. Preteach the verb impersonate and elicit the words impersonator and impersonation. - 5 mins
Write these names/people on the board: George Bush; Bharrat Jagdeo; Bilawal Bhutto; the brother of King Mohammed VI; Fidel Castro; Nicloas Sarkozy; Hugo Chávez; Mark Zuckerburg. Ask the students which of these they are familiar with (Any they are unsure about they will find out about in the article). - 5 mins
Write the following sentence endings on the board and check any unknown words.
- ... have fake profiles on Facebook now.
- ... has a real profile on Facebook.
- ... have been unhappy about fake profiles on Facebook.
- ... started the Facebook social networking site.
Give out the article. Focus students on the headline and photo. Ask them which group President Jagdeo might be in, he's unhappy about a fake profile. Ask students to read the article and then match the names to the sentences above. - 15 mins
Write the following paragraph titles on the board. Students read the article again and match title to the paragraph. - 10 mins
- The history of Facebook
- Fake profiles everywhere
- Facebook impersonator goes to gaol
- Facebook rules
- Top world leader uses Facebook
- President's office: ignore profile
- Bogus profile with hundreds of supporters
- President orders police to catch impersonator
Optional Activity
Use the lesson as a starting point for setting up a class profile on Facebook in English. One or two students could act as administrators and help top create an invitation-only group profile. Use the recent news section for discussing class events or giving out/discussing homework. Students make regular posts and add photos or videos.
