Wikipedia is not the only popular website to have recently fallen victim to academic cybervandalism. YouTube, too, has recently been struck by graffiti artists with a score to settle against a Muslim university instructor in Canada.
According to the country's <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071204.PROF04/TPStory/Na"
Tional">Globe and Mail, an engineering professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has complained to authorities after the social networking site was used to circulate photos of his wife and daughters. In the incident, the perpetrators maded references to his Muslim faith and Middle East origins while accusing him of pimping his family.
The National Post reports that the academic (who wishes to remain anonymous) was devastated by the series of images that were posted briefly on the website. A message alerting users to the video was also distributed across the Dalhousie University email system.
According to the university paper, campus officials have rallied to the defence of the veteran professor. The institution's vice-chancellor, Tom Traves, described the six-minute work as "racist and malicious".
The episode may be a first for YouTube, but it had familiar overtones for the Canadian institution, which in August suffered another online embarrassment, this time on the social networking site Facebook when more than 21,000 people joined a site called Stop Dogs and Puppies from Being Murdered at Dalhousie University, replete with a photograph showing a forlorn Beagle pup in what was supposedly a cage at the university.
At the time, the institution called for a more "educated and civilised level" of discourse regarding its activities.
Still, not every observer was entirely sympathetic to the defamed professor. Huffed one online contributor:
"Comeon this is ridiculous i remember cut an paste porno image of president regan and nancy floating around in the 90's , its a parody he's a public figure at a university , yes its in bad taste, but thats it. Bloody stupid joke, but hey thats what happens when were in a free country, all this talk of criminal charges blah blah blah, wake up people there is real pain out in the world real issues that are important, kids have been drawing nasty pictures of their teachers probably since the time of the flintstones."
Surprisingly, the live-and-let-live apologist neglected to supply his or her own personal details so that someone could have a little "bad taste" YouTube fun at his or her own family's expense. Funny that.
