Gay Girl in Damascus hoax, and other ways we are lied to

 

The dots are connecting themselves here, good people! Just a great example how the public is repeatedly lied to in hopes of shaping their opinions and gaining approval. Is the "gay girl" blogger really just a student from Edinburgh? Why do people protesting in Arab countries as of recent have signs printed in English? It nice to see the walls crashing down!

From: The Atlantic Wire

The Excuses and Consequences for the 'Gay Girl in Damascus' Hoax

By Uri Friedman 11:53 AM ET

On Sunday, after a week-long investigation, we learned that the author behind the Gay Girl in Damascus blog was not a gay Syrian-American woman named Amina Abdallah Arraf abducted in Syria for her dissident political and social views. Instead it was a 40-year-old American Middle East activist named Tom MacMaster working on his master's degree at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Over the last 24 hours, MacMaster has changed the title of his blog from "A Gay Girl in Damascus" to "A Hoax that got way out of hand," penned two posts apologizing to readers, and granted several interviews. Here's how he's rationalized his actions:

• An Undercover Middle East Voice: MacMaster initially dismissed the notion that he'd harmed anyone, writing that while the blog's "narrative voıce may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true." He felt he'd "created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about" and tried to "illuminate them for a western audience." The media frenzy surrounding his hoax, he added, "has sadly only confirmed my feelings regarding the often superficial coverage of the Middle East and the pervasiveness of new forms of liberal Orientalism."

Read the complete post HERE