Columnist Thomas Sowell Writes About Getting Impersonated on the Web

By: Dave Astor Creators Syndicate columnist Thomas Sowell has written about his experience having a piece wrongly attributed to him on the Web.

As E&P reported in two stories earlier this month, a blogger posted a piece under Sowell's name that the columnist didn't write.

The new column -- offered to Sowell clients as a bonus piece -- is titled "Anarchy on the Internet."

Sowell writes: "The Internet provides vast amounts of information but it can also spread vast amounts of misinformation, or even deliberately misleading disinformation.

"For more than two weeks, scarcely a day has gone by without e-mails pouring in to me, asking about columns that someone has written and brazenly spread around the Internet with my name on them."

He went on to add: "The implications of this episode reach well beyond the newspaper industry. Everyone should be concerned about Internet anarchy in which anybody can pretend to be anybody else, unless something is done to stop it.

"If hoaxes like this go unchecked, who can believe anything they see on the Internet? What good would the Internet be then?

"If the people who control ... Web sites do not do anything, is that not an open invitation for government to step in? And does anybody want politicians to control what can go on the Internet?"

When Creators couldn't reach the blogger who posted the not-by-Sowell piece, the syndicate made multiple efforts to get Google (which supplies the tools for that blog) to take action.

The piece -- which apparently appeared elsewhere on the Web as well -- finally disappeared from the blog about two weeks after Creators started contacting Google.

E&P's Aug. 15 and Aug. 18 stories about the misattribution can be seen here and here.