May the true victim of defacement stand up: On reading the network configurations of scandal on the Web

W HEN THE WO RLD TRADE ORGANISAT ION PUBLICLY acknowledged the presence of an impostor WTO site on the Web, it tried to make a scandal out of the uncertainty it inspired in users. The address and content of the rogue Web site are almost the same as those of the official WTO site, except for a few critical modifications. Not mentioning these sensitive alterations, however, in its statement to the press, the WTO instead made the complaint that the site confuses users.1 They wouldn’t know which is the real site and which is fake. Now it can indeed be said that, in scandals of defacement on the Web, confusion over the identity of the actors involved is the real scandal. But this is so, not just because users wouldn’t be able to tell the impostor from its target, but also because, as long as the scandal lasts, the division of roles among the actors involved, really is an open question. Which of the protagonists in the scandal constitutes the real target of defamation, remains uncertain for the duration of the affair. In the debacle around the rogue WTO site, it may seem obvious that it is the organisation which stands accused; after all, it is the WTO’s site which is being parodied by the rogue. However, as the WTO publicly denounced its critic, the latter may very well have become the subject of scandal. Which actor is being defamed here? As long as a scandal lives, it remains unclear which of the actors involved ultimately stands accused in the affair. And when the uncertainty is finally removed, you can be pretty sure the scandal has dissolved with it. Confusion over the identity of the accused and the accuser can be regarded as the sign of life of the scandal, as its breath or its heartbeat.2 The defacement of icons, of logos, and entire homepages, is one of the preferred tactics of scandal mongering on the Web. The WTO is just one entry on a long list of victims (even if, as it goes with victim lists, some of those present on it may turn out not to have been victims after all).3 In those cases in which the defaced icon proliferates across the Web and beyond, and the target responds, a scandal of defacement is born. Of these scandals of defacement, the production of uncertainty over the identity of the actors involved can be seen as a key feature. As the defacers and the defaced appropriate each other’s figures of speech (graphic and otherwise),4 and exchange accusations, which of the actors involved constitutes the real subject of defamation remains an open question.5 Identity games, and the production of uncertainty, which according to many define the new media, thus also play their parts in scandals on the Web. However, it would be a mistake to deduce from this that it is impossible to make any diagnosis as to the distribution of shame and blame in scandals on the Web. Perhaps the Web counterintuitively, even as it fosters uncertainty, also provides means for its resolution. There are network configurations to scandals on the Web. On the basis of these configurations, a diagnosis of the scandal can be made, even if it is only a provisional one. Reading the network, we can find out which actor, at a given moment, stands under attack. Furthermore, it can be determined when the network stopped having a pulse, and thus the time and cause of “death” of the scandal can be established. The network can then provide an answer to the question: which of the actors involved ended up in the position of the victim of defacement, and how that happened. Such an exercise may give us an indication whether the scandal has been treated to a good life by the actors involved. Among the many types of networks that are currently being articulated on the Web, the scandal network has a legendary status. As distinguished from the debate network or the product network, for example, the scandal network is very active but also very short-lived.6 Scandals on the Web (just as off the Web), characteristically lead an eventful life but tend to die young, which is why they can be called the legend among network forms. In a short period of time, many actors get tied up in the network, but they disperse again not too long after. A second feature of the scandal network is that it has at its core a small set of main actors, with a much larger media scandal support system configuring around it, nourishing the scandal. Thirdly,