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The Villain Speaks: Social Media Cheating

By Aloysius Low - on 05 May 2010, 9:44am

If you haven't yet checked out today's Digital Life (a Straits Times supplement that comes out every Wednesday), you should. Especially if you're a social media junkie. Sherwin Loh, who had to undergo a week without social media, talked about his decidedly horrible experience.

Now if you've read the article, you would know that he mentioned a "friend" had been going around stealing his Foursquare mayorships during his social media confinement.

It's time for a confession. Said person? Me.

Of course, in order to steal his Mayorships, I would actually have to travel to the places where he's mayor, but that would be way too much work. Instead, I decided to cheat, which was pretty easy to do once you figured out how to do so. Obviously, I won't be disclosing the method, since you really shouldn't be cheating.

I had hoped to grab at least ten Mayorships from Sherwin before the end of his social media blackout, but well, I didn't figure out how exactly to get the check-ins to count until Tuesday. In the end, I did grab seven Mayorships from him, but I made sure that he could reclaim his Mayorships back quickly once he could finally get back online.

So why bother in the first place? Well, firstly, it was a load of laughs to gauge his reactions from his SMSes to me, but to me, it was merely a test of how silly the Foursquare check-in system works (Hint: it's pretty much dependent on how honest a person is). Heck I even managed to become the Mayor of his desk. How silly is that?

At the end of the day though, we're hopefully still friends (right, Sherwin?) and at least, there was enough buzz all around generated from the "drama" of the lost Mayorships that helped keep the Twitter hashtag #survivalsherwin trending for awhile.

Now, if you will please excuse me while I find a nice dark corner to hide till he's calmed down.

 

Aloysius Low

Aloysius Low / Former Tech Writer

Tech writer, gadget nerd, cat owner and social media junkie, Aloysius loves exploring the wacky side of tech, while tackling his notebook reviews.

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