The Web facilitates lying perfectly says Genevieve Bell

Written on 7th February 2008                                                                                                              4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

This morning Patrick, Arjan, Babette and me arrived in Geneve for the LIFT08 Conference. We already saw some interesting speakers. For example Genevieve Bell from Intel, who discussed digital deceptions. She told us that when she registered for Yahoo and Flickr, she’d lied about her age and the city she lived in. When she lost her password she wasn’t able to retrieve it, since she had no idea what her registered age was. After discussing some (fun) facts (we tell 200 lies a day) and offering historical context (lying is bad, according to all religions), she concluded that the Web facilitates lying pretty well. We can make crazy avatars that don’t even look like us and children under 13 can just register to social networks if they lie.

Next to gaining access to services and presenting yourself in a cool way, people also lie about things they don’t want to be public. So to sum it up, we lie in order to protect our identity.

Lift captures almost everything that happens, so you can actually watch with us. Check out Bell’s presentation below, or go the special Nouvo Lift page.