Fraud in the blogosphere

There are many reasons why I am not a successful journalist. One of them is my ability to remain oblivious to key events. Almost a week ago Lord Credo, the prolific blogger and Twitterer, was outed as a fraud. He had claimed to be at the heart of government, even to have David Cameron's ear. All of that was a lie.

In my defence, this news hardly broke the front pages. In fact, if this story shows anything it is that people care very little about the blogosphere. For all the talk about individual empowerment and grassroots journalism, the fact that not one person bothered to double-check a man 4,400 people thought to be genuine is indicative. He even managed to fool the Huffington Post.

It is tempting to blame the times we live in. In Agatha Christie's 'A Murder Is Announced', Miss Marple laments that 'no one knows any longer who's who'. The problem is 'people just come - and all you know about them is what they say of themselves'. No longer can we rely on a strongly integrated community to provide us with the necessary information on newcomers. 

This view is bunk. Over 100 years earlier people were able to accept the concept of a man being incarcerated, escaping, and returning home as a fictitious Count of Monte Cristo. Countless generations have claimed that when they were young they knew everyone on their street and that there was less crime. This claim becomes rather astounding when one considers that one in five women in 18th century London were prostitutes.

In fact, one could argue the confidence trick has become harder nowadays. In a Big Brother age of bureaucratic oversight in which we must all have qualifications from a universally accepted institution, it almost seems refreshing that a man was able to walk into the top echelons of society purely on the back of his personality.

That said, this man's actions were deplorable. He abused his friends' trust and defrauded them. If there is a lesson to learn from this sorry affair, it is that even in a modern world of instant communication and social media, you can't trust anyone to be who they say they are. You don't trust spam e-mails. Don't trust a Twitter profile.