My thoughts on Manti Te’o case:
The web has changed the way we think about relationships. Who “our friends” are is different than a few years ago, when a thin connection and a couple of online chats didn’t constitute something to be thought of as a real friendship.
Of course, as may or may not be the case with T’eo, truth and identity has changed because of the web. I could go online right now and create the life of a college co-ed. She could have a Twitter and a Facebook account. I could fill in a random high school, stock it with photos that are just a right-click away. Then I could find a chat site and become that person. Behind this monitor, anyone can become anyone.
Whether Te’o was in it or no just speaks to the overall notion of what the online world has done to “truth”. Remember, today is also the day that Lance Armstrong is speaking. How much Te’o knew and when he knew it is caught up in the flow of information between him, the girlfriend/hoaxer and the media waiting to spread a good story.
Finally, that’s where I feel the strongest in all of this. This shows the continuing flux of movement beneath the feet of the media, as it grew from a feel-good story that made for great (albeit shallowly reported) pieces on ESPN, to something that was “a Deadspin story” into a time of self-reflection for those reporters who were taken in by what may have been a massive con by someone who almost won the Heisman.
In a way this story both hurts and helps our trust in what we see online. It should make more people skeptical about whether a drama or tragedy that sounds too-good-to-be-true is, but it should also show us that sites like Deadspin, which lure us with lurid, linkbait headlines every day are also close enough to the web to understand it and report on it.