False Personas

In the case of Jesse Gullickson of Brown Country Minnesota, a clear example of the online use of false personas can be seen: Gullickson impersonated a professional wedding photographer through the creation of fake profiles in order to lure women and asks for nude pictures. The catfishing victim, Bobby Faerber provided police with evidence of what Gullickson was doing, and Gullickson was charged with criminal defamation and convicted (Raguse, 2019). In my opinion, the case was decided rightly, as Gullickson was clearly impersonating Faerber through an online false persona intending to use Faerbers good name, brand, and reputation to solicit women for his own personal benefit. Faerbers own reputation was hurt in the process, as his good name became tarnished by Gullicksons actions. The charge of criminal defamation made perfect sense, and the case was rightly decided.

In some cases, people may create false...

For example, a law enforcement officer might create a false persona in order to infiltrate a criminal organization. However, even this can skirt the edge of the law, because officers could be engaging in entrapment in doing so. Nonetheless, by assuming a false identity, the officer can gain the trust of the criminals and collect evidence...…Court case Voltron v. Katz established that the Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination extend to certain "implicit" statements, or actions that can be construed as admitting guilt. This principle was later reaffirmed in the 1976 case Brown v. Mississippi, in which the Court found that a defendant's failure to respond to police questioning may not be used as evidence of guilt. These rulings make it clear that, in some cases, it may be a violation of a person's Fifth Amendment rights to try to expose a false persona. If the police attempt to question a defendant who is pretending to be someone else, and the defendant remains…