LARRY’S VIEW - GUTLESS, FACELESS IMPOSTER HIGHLIGHTS THE DARK-SIDE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, August 31, 2012

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

It’s amazing what some people will try to put in your way to stop you getting ahead. In last week’s blog I stated how my hard work was paying off with my solid start to the season and how mentally I was in a much better place having put the down-side of last season behind me.

So what happens? I wake up last Sunday morning to my phone ringing and I suddenly find myself unwittingly involved in a social media mess with my name, reputation and integrity being mangled by a faceless facebook user. An imposter opened an account in my name and proceeded to post outrageous, really damaging comments as if they were emanating from me.

I’m not on facebook. I’m not on twitter, because I just think it leaves you open to people taking things wrongly, or bagging you, and I don't want that. So I’ve sort of vowed never to be on there. My wife has an account … just to keep up with the family.

After we got the warning, we were able to get onto facebook and have a look through her account. Even then though, obviously we couldn’t actually look at everything the person had posted because my wife wasn’t a friend of ‘Larry Cassidy’. She sleeps with him, but she is not a friend with him … which is quite bizarre!

What I read though was in very poor taste. It is a bit of a shock to the system when you first read it. It was insinuating a lot of things, but you quickly settle down and come to terms with what you are dealing with.

On the page it gave a fairly detailed description, from the writers point of view, of a couple of my rides on Saturday … and it was pretty much telling the stewards how I was able to get them beat.

The imposter also befriended other riders. The person in fact spoke to one of the leading apprentices on facebook about how to pull horses up. The post said that he should have a talk to me at the races and I would tell him how to pull them up.

You know, for a moment I half thought it might be a poor joke, but I quickly dismissed that option. It’s not a joke.

I quickly formulated the view that it is quite a serious matter. It is potentially damaging to my career, particularly as the amount of friends that the site gained in a short space of time it was ‘live’ included a lot of apprentices, trainers and people to do with racing.

The perpetrator sent these people friend requests and obviously most of them accepted it, thinking it was coming from me.

I did try to formulate a time-line on when the account was opened. I was thinking it was possibly Saturday night after the races. If the person has in fact opened it on a Saturday night, obviously whoever it is was probably sitting at home.

Whether it is that they really do dislike me and they want to hurt me in some way, or whether they have simply backed a couple of horses I have ridden that haven’t won and they’ve taken it badly … it doesn’t really matter.

What they have done is make a vicious attack on me to try to get me into trouble.

You know the fact that the page was opened in my name … that photos were posted of me to make it look more authentic and that other people were sent ‘friend requests’ shows that this was not quite a spontaneous, spur of the moment thing.

It took the person time, trouble and effort to set up the false page for malicious purposes. With so many outlets available to post an opinion it shows up the persons cowardly character that they didn’t say what they were thinking under their own name, or even under a pseudonym.

By choosing to impersonate me they crossed the line. If they have to hide behind that lie that just shows how weak they are.

The more we read on the false facebook account the more damaging it became. Also the numbers were building. When we logged on to the site on Sunday morning there were forty-five friends … and within ten minutes another twelve had joined.

I would guess that this person probably has their own site and has a lot of racing friends so they handpicked people from that list to send a friend request. I didn’t know where that was going to stop, so I thought it was in my best interests to try to have the site blocked.

We went through the blocking procedure with facebook. The site was blocked at about midday on Sunday, but now it seems the procedure we went through may not have had them block it because I received an e-mail on Monday from facebook saying that my concerns didn’t meet the criteria to have the page blocked … which was ridiculous.

I mean we went through the site rules and it said anybody impersonating someone else saying untrue things about that person … you have the right to block the account. So I’m not certain now whether our complaint went through and we, in fact, blocked the account, or whether the person who opened the account suddenly blocked it themselves realizing the trouble they might be in.

In any event, I had already contacted Wade Birch to let him know about the matter.

Wade was fantastic. He was very helpful. Apparently the stewards have a connection with … I think possibly the Crime Squad. They are chasing it up. I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’m sure they will want to talk to me along the way.

It is the second time in the last couple of years I’ve had a person impersonating somebody else and trying to upset me. On the previous occasion it was a person posing as a reporter who also wanted to take me to task for, in his opinion, not riding a horse to win.

That call was in similar vein to the facebook attack. That also came with some other abusive phone calls. I don’t know … I suppose it could be the same person, but I basically have no idea who it might be.

Hopefully some light will be shed on that with the investigation that has been opened.

At the end of the day I do think the whole episode is obviously designed to damage me. By my own admission I had a lean season last season and I have picked myself up, become focused again and things are going well.

So, while somebody seems intent on putting the brakes on my career, I’m happy to send them a message of my own.

The person interacted on the false facebook account they set up in my name on a number of occasions so the chances are their IP address can be tracked. I got a phone call. They might get a knock on the door … but I’ll be leaving that and other relevant investigations up to the authorities who are best equipped to deal with the matter.

The bottom line is I have no intention of letting this unseemly episode distract me from focusing on my riding or my intention of keeping the winners rolling in, so if that was part of the impersonator’s aim, they have failed miserably.

Till next week
Larry

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