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Good point, Roger - 

There are times in which the role of 'curation' in terms of online 
experimentation or even its conceptualization isn't executed well, and there 
can be unexpected results.  Perhaps this is proof that art still has some 
power, however...

I hope that this is not off topic.  I feel a little odd in this discussion, 
as 'identity' is an issue I work with in other guises.  This is a sticky 
matter, when there are archives at The Way Back Machine, and so on that 
leave a trail well affter the initial problem is gone.  There are two 
instances that I'd like to address.

For example, there are groups that co-opt identity in the Tactical Media 
community for positive social change. There are plagiarist, The Yes Men, 
Hacktivist, irational, and many others who have used corporate media 
identity as critical tool.  Fortunately, 90% of these are well-thought out, 
insightful crritiques (most of the time), but what happens when an identity 
hack is done without aplomb? 

Or worse yet, what if one of 'the good guys' gets intervened upon?  This can 
be a bit of a problem, as the half-life of online media can be longer than 
expected, if you know where to look.  There may be ways to use 'identity 
correction' methods to remedy this, but but I want to be cautious in 
offering methodologies at the moment.  

My best uunderstanding of reversing this is to follow up with the search 
engines and archives in ensuring that as much of the material is removed as 
possible.  This can be lengthy, but may be worth the work.

For example, a colleague of mine (a 3D Animation instructor) had some of the 
text from an entry in a CGI modelling contest, including his name, in the 
'junk text' of several porn sites.  This text is often used in the body of 
html to throw off spam filters and SafeSearch engines.  Because of his 
ethhnicity and family sttatus, he was absolutely mortified to learn his name 
(as well as several student) had been linked to the porn site.  

However, he had pursued the mattered and worked with google and Yahoo to 
reverse the matter, and it was eventually taken care of.

The alteration of media identity, intentional or not, has immense power.  
I'm sorry to see one of our community inadvertantly (I would certainly hope 
that it was inadvertant) be hurt by a media effect that, if well-thought out 
in the proper tactical intervention, can have fantastic potential for 
positive social activism.