The Manti Te’o hoax story has more or less ended -- though Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the alleged mastermind of the dead girlfriend hoax, spoke to Dr. Phil in a two-part interview -- but the lessons from it have been used by other schools.
Per Kyle Rowland of Eleven Warriors, Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon put together a little catfishing scheme -- as in creating a false identity online with the intent of deceiving someone else -- to teach Wolverine athletes about the dangers of social media.Brandon said the athletic department catfished several athletes to teach them the dangers of social networking. Very interesting.
— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) February 1, 2013
On the UM catfishing: They had an attractive female contact athletes on social media. Some athlete responses were wholly inappropriate.
— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) February 1, 2013
Brandon had meeting with players, and the girl walked in. Athletes were shocked, but it was valuable lesson in dangers of social media.
— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) February 1, 2013
(Note: Yes, we know the tweets are dated from the future. No, we don’t think we’re victim of some kind of inception-catfishing hoax by Rowland. Maybe.) Michigan coach Brady Hoke expanded on the idea (via):
“Before he came in, we gave him 20 Facebook accounts of guys on our team,” coach Brady Hoke said earlier this month while speaking with hundreds of the state’s high school football coaches. “He had his assistant -- she tried to talk to our guys. ‘Hey, what are ya doin’?’ Whatever it might be.
“Well, two months later we’re in a team meeting and we’re on the topic of what you put out there in the cyber universe ... you should have seen 115 guys when that young lady -- she was hot, now; a very, very nice looking young lady -- when she walked into that meeting room, and the guys looking at each other.
“Because some of them didn’t use their heads when communicating back and forth with that young lady.”Why certain players would ever respond to the following message: “Hi! I am new to YOUR AREA. I think u r cute message me back LOL xoxo!” from a girl named Rebekah6872<3<3<3 duckfacing in her profile picture is beyond me, but I guess weird situations require unconventional methods.