Post by ۞Quaalude™۞ on Apr 21, 2011 13:37:24 GMT -5
Why would someone fake a serious illness online? Jenny Kleeman on the strange world of Münchausen by internet.
Anyone following her updates online could see that Mandy Wilson had been having a terrible few years. She was diagnosed with leukemia at 37, shortly after her husband abandoned her, leaving her to bring up their five-year-old daughter and baby son on her own. Chemotherapy damaged her immune system, liver and heart so badly she eventually had a stroke and went into a coma. She spent weeks recovering in intensive care, where nurses treated her roughly, leaving her covered in bruises.
Wilson was frightened and vulnerable, but she wasn't alone. As she suffered at home in Australia, women offered their support throughout the US, Britain, New Zealand and Canada. She'd been posting on connectedmoms.com, an online community for mothers, and its members were following every detail of her progress - through updates posted by Wilson herself, and also by Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet, Wilson's real-life friends, who'd pass on news whenever she was too weak. The virtual community rallied round through three painful years of surgeries, seizures and life-threatening infections. Until March last year, when one of them discovered Wilson wasn't sick at all. Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet had never existed. Wilson had made up the whole story.
Wilson is one of a growing number of people who pretend to suffer illness and trauma to get sympathy from online support groups. Think of the characters portrayed by Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club, only these support groups are virtual, and the people deceived are real. From cancer forums to anorexia websites, LiveJournal to Mumsnet, trusting communities are falling victim to a new kind of online fraud, one in which people are scammed out of their time and emotion instead of their money. The fakers have nothing to gain from their lies - except attention QC
Read more: www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/mnchausen-by-internet-the-sick-world-of-the-internet-fakers-20110419-1dm9l.html#ixzz1KBU3rrFF
Anyone following her updates online could see that Mandy Wilson had been having a terrible few years. She was diagnosed with leukemia at 37, shortly after her husband abandoned her, leaving her to bring up their five-year-old daughter and baby son on her own. Chemotherapy damaged her immune system, liver and heart so badly she eventually had a stroke and went into a coma. She spent weeks recovering in intensive care, where nurses treated her roughly, leaving her covered in bruises.
Wilson was frightened and vulnerable, but she wasn't alone. As she suffered at home in Australia, women offered their support throughout the US, Britain, New Zealand and Canada. She'd been posting on connectedmoms.com, an online community for mothers, and its members were following every detail of her progress - through updates posted by Wilson herself, and also by Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet, Wilson's real-life friends, who'd pass on news whenever she was too weak. The virtual community rallied round through three painful years of surgeries, seizures and life-threatening infections. Until March last year, when one of them discovered Wilson wasn't sick at all. Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet had never existed. Wilson had made up the whole story.
Wilson is one of a growing number of people who pretend to suffer illness and trauma to get sympathy from online support groups. Think of the characters portrayed by Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club, only these support groups are virtual, and the people deceived are real. From cancer forums to anorexia websites, LiveJournal to Mumsnet, trusting communities are falling victim to a new kind of online fraud, one in which people are scammed out of their time and emotion instead of their money. The fakers have nothing to gain from their lies - except attention QC
Read more: www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/mnchausen-by-internet-the-sick-world-of-the-internet-fakers-20110419-1dm9l.html#ixzz1KBU3rrFF