Anurag Jain's Blog
Sunday, December 05, 2004

Identity Correction!

Every heard of that term? Well, that's what The Yes Men claim to practice. And they seem to be pretty good at it. The latest identity correction they made was on Dec 03, 2004 - the 20th anniversary of Bhopal Gas Leak disaster - posing as a Dow Chemicals spokesperson and owning the responsibility for Bhopal disaster. A Yes Men member tricked BBC into believing that he was the official Dow spokesperson. The BBC broadcast this interview with 'Dow Spokesperson' twice before realizing and removing it and all its traces. This particular identity correction assumes significance especially because Dow had bought Union Carbide, company which operated the Bhopal plant at the time of accident, and since then Dow has been refusing to own up the responsibility.

The Yes Men's concept of identity correction seems quite interesting, and in fact, needed in today's irresponsible world. More about them at wikipedia:

The Yes Men's most famous prank is placing a "corrected" WTO website at gatt.org (GATT is the treaty that led to the WTO). The fake site began to receive real emails from confused visitors, including invitations to address various elite groups on behalf of the WTO, which they obligingly took up. Showing up in newly-purchased suits, The Yes Men gave speeches encouraging corporations to buy votes directly from citizens, arguing that the US Civil War was a waste of money because Third World countries now willing supply equivalent slaves, and arguing that people should listen to the WTO, not the facts, because the WTO had a lot of experts.

Good to know that somebody is doing the right thing and trying to shake people's/corporate's conscience..

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