This Just In: People Lie On The Internet

Let's just clear this up straight away: Sordel is not [repeat: not] a gay half-American girl called Amina Abdullah who lives in Damascus.

And neither is Tom McMaster, who posed as a Syrian political blogger for as long as people were credulous enough to believe him. Score: one for the Blogosponge; zero for anyone still sitting at home waiting for their ten million dollars to arrive from Nigeria.

McMaster is, so says Yahoo, "a Middle East activist, while his wife is studying at Scotland's St Andrews University for a doctorate in Syrian economic development". This may, however, be wrong, if their fact-checking is as dismal as that of Pink News, who were among the media outlets entirely taken in by what is now evidently to be considered a "hoax" rather than a piece of imaginitive fiction.

Oh, and if you think that the only people deluded by this were the Lesbian and Gay virtual community, here is Time: "Inspiring the Syrian protest movement is an honest and reflective voice of the revolution: a half-American citizen journalist who, in illustrating her country's plight, risks death herself."

Every day Sordel is surprised to hear tales of young girls persuaded to strip off in front of a webcam by sexual predators using tools of deception no more sophisticated than a fake Facebook account and six lines of leetspeak. Yet seemingly that girl's parents have been downstairs at the same moment in earnest discussion about the fate of Amina and how to check for the market value of those shares in the Brooklyn Bridge that they bought.

The really worrying thing about this (other than the fact that Sordel could evidently have been mounting a successful Ponzi scheme for the last few months rather than wasting time writing these vignettes) is that the media are so desperate for tales of repression that they will accept them from any source, however disreputable.

Fittingly, a book is about to be published about the truth behind Robinson Crusoe, which was also published as plain fact despite being (as we would now infer) a cruel hoax sneering in the face of maritime safety and the plight of shipwreck victims.

Don't look now, First Tier Media, your flies are undone.

The Truth Shall Not Set You Free

One of the problems with the term blogosphere is that it suggests that this corner of the internet is pristine and impermeable, whereas permeability is its most conspicuous attribute. It is a "blogo-sponge" (this term, admittedly, does not have the same ring to it) and - as we now know - is one of those sponges that is regarded as a fertile breeding-ground for corruption of all sorts. There is a perception, in fact, that it is full of plain lies, which is why (a lowly member of) the government was so keen to get into the business.

Since there is a temptation for this to slide into another "all politicians are liars" rant, let us remember one who told the truth. On 17 March 2003 Robin Cook received the peculiar honour of becoming quite possibly the first politician in British history to receive a standing ovation in the Commons for a resignation speech in which he gave what all recognised to be a truthful and compelling account of his analysis of the argument for the Iraq War. It is one of a handful of political speeches in my lifetime that have had any real resonance or significance.

The bitter irony of this speech, however, is that it marked the effective end of Cook's political career, and as time goes by it is becoming largely forgotten. Many of the same MPs who stood for Cook went on to give the second standing ovation of the Commons to Tony Blair, whose policies were Cook's target and who had been shown by the point of his own resignation to be (at best) mistaken in the case he had made for war.

There is no need, therefore, to say that all politicians are liars. All one need say is that the ones who tell the truth will never gain an effective majority over those who prefer (even if they do not utter) the lie.

In recent years, the truth about the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes came to light despite the ardent attempts of all involved to suppress it. It seems likely that the truth about the death of Ian Tomlinson will also come to light. The truth about MPs expenses is so nearly in the light of day that they are furiously calculating a way to feather their nests that can be disguised as a reform.

Lies are beset on all sides by the truth, yet - like some mendacious reworking of the defence of Rorke's Drift - they maintain a valiant defence against seemingly insurmountable odds.