How Communication Can Deceive People, Essay Example

Technology is slowly killing romance and to add to it text technology is putting limitations on developing communication and adding to potential criminal threats to people and society. The reason for such a view is because a person can hide behind a text whilst developing a relationship with some unknowing gullible person. Often predators use text messaging and online communication to make contact and lure innocent young people as well as older adults into suspicious criminal acts. For instance a person can meet another online through a dating site or a Facebook.com account who represents themselves as being a male lawyer with a pretty nice moral character. After speaking to them for weeks or even months online this may develop into a situation where they want to meet and the other person may become victim to a crime of murder or sexual assault because the person they were chatting with online was not actually who they represented themselves as being. “Often times when a person is involved in a situation as such they are mesmerized with the online contacts and do not take notice of the reality of the situation.” (Moore, 2007)  That is why they fall victim to such criminal acts.

“Often pauses and other low-level clues such as over generality and cognitive clues can give rise to deceptiveness to factual situations. Deception is a form of manipulation, and can have many varied negative consequences in a virtual community, especially once discovered (Joinson & Dietz-Uhler, 2002) but even if undiscovered.  Virtual communities need to be aware of the problems and need to agree on policies for detecting deception and responding to it.” (Crowe, 2005). Research shows that online deception is very difficult to detect prima facie and is not often detected until after the fact.

Some clues to online deception include hesitation, over generality, blinking if doing video chat, short responses and actions, increased irrelevance and increased hyperbole. High level clues are easier to detect for they include discrepancies of information provided. It is very easy to deceive a person that is unfamiliar with online communication or that is emotionally susceptible to deceit. (Barber and Kim) states we should consider the reputation of the deceiver when making an assessment whether deceit has occurred (2001). “Automated data fusion applications are notable programs that have been used to detect possible credit card frauds and intrusion detections.” (Moore, 2007). Researchers hope to incorporate such a system to detect possible online deception communication frauds. But legislature states this may be a violation of a person’s right to privacy.

A person can eliminate online and text message criminal invasions by simply ignoring them or by choosing the prosecution method. A person can simply delete offensive messages or block an offensive perpetrator from communicating with them. If a deception is of higher value to a person they can expose the deceiver in a ‘public manner’ in hopes the deceiver stops the obtrusive behaviour.

Technology seems to make deception quite easy to occur. People can hide behind a computer or a cellular phone and commit offensive and criminal behaviour. Often servers cannot track messages due to deceivers using wireless internet servers. Smart police work can track an offender even to wireless internet cafes if they are interested in the actual crime committed. Often small deceptions go overlooked by the police because they do not constitute the work effort as larger crimes of cyberspace that lead to felony crimes of sexual assault, fraud and murder. Is this fair? I think not, but police often state that the prisons are overcrowded and they simply do not have the manpower to handle small frivolous internet crimes. They have to concentrate on the more radical crimes. A crime is a crime and holds the same weight whether committed over the internet or in person. If a person uses the internet to provoke and orchestrate a crime, they are guilty of the same crime as if they committed it in person. Cyberspace is simply another avenue to aid criminals in committing a crime.

Online deception is easy to accomplish because there is an elimination of the physical clues that are present with in-person deception. Michael Woodworth, forensic psychologist says “When people are interacting face to face, there is something called the ‘motivational impairment effect,’ where your body will give off some cues as you become more nervous and there’s more at stake with your lie.” (“Why People are Better at Lying Online Than Telling a Face-to-Face Lie”). Vocal clues, facial expressions and physical gestures cannot be observed during online chatting. Research shows that people in general tell on average of one to two lies a day. Deception is common amongst families for survival and political advantage. Further deception is a powerful social tool used in society.

In research conducted on both psychopathic and non-psychopathic killers it was found that dominated linguistic patterns concerned terminology of “eating and money”. “Psychopaths were more likely to reference discussions related to clothing and drinking whilst discussing their homicide act. Woodworth and Hancock’s motivational enhancement effect suggests that people who lie in a computer setting are ‘not less likely to be detected’ rather they are ‘simply better at being deceptive than people who are less motivated.” (“Why People are Better at Lying Online Than Telling a Face-to-Face Lie”).

There are many direct online crimes committed every year and many indirect crimes committed through the use of the internet and text messaging. People are falling prey to online communication and text message deceit at a heightened level. It is time that the judicial, legislation and police put in effect stronger measures to prevent such cyber crime.

References

Moore, N. (2007) Rule of Thumbs:  Love in the Age of Texting Retrieved October 23, 2009 from, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091401972.html

Rowe, N. (2005) Detecting Online Deception and Responding to it Retrieved October 23, 2009 from, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nps/decep_detec.htm

Why People are Better at Telling an Online Lie Than Telling a Face-to-Face Lie Retrieved October 23, 2009 from, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090503203738.htm