Recently, an art fair friend of mine suffered unfounded accusations of forgery and/or copying from a person he has never met. These claims were posted on his business Facebook page. The language was a bit vile. An art fair show director looked at his page to see more of his work (beyond his jury photos) and saw this post. The director called my friend for clarification and was satisfied with the answers, yet it could easily have gone the other way. My friend removed the offensive post, but is understandably very upset.
We should all be aware of the damage we can do with social media and refrain ourselves. My friend's livelihood depends on his ability to get into good shows. This bad comment nearly ruined his chance for at least one show and maybe did eliminate him from others. Who knows?
Calling for self control!
Robin Ragsdale
www.evenbetterimages.com
Comments
You can set up your page to only allow comments after you approve of them. This has also happened to a friend of mine. Someone was harassing her about personal issues on her business page. I check mine daily, and have mine set so that I have to approve of any comments before they are posted.
You know what though? I DID come across a forger on FB, whose work was basically copies from art books, (Bridgeman, Da Vinci, etc.) some of which I own! He even had a separate website with a link to a forged copy of a popular news website in which he claimed to be the "Art Director"! Of course he deleted my comments on his FB page!
It's so important to check your Facebook page every day, several times a day if you have time. There are all kinds of people out there, and not all of them are your "friends"!
It's scary what people can put on your facebook page. A friend of mine had someone post a message on her page as if it was from her. All her friends got the message about this great diet she was on and how she had already lost 20 pounds. When I called her with congrats I learned there was no diet. She didn't know anything about it or how the message got on there. They were using her for an advertizing scam.
I don't disagree with what you are saying but it isn't fair to assume that the person asking questions about authenticity of work had not done research before saying anything on a facebook page.
I appreciate your loyalty to your friend and hope it isn't misplaced. And I hope it isn't the watch people!
It is always painful to be accused of stealing someone else's ideas or images. I sell a lot of paintings on Etsy, and I've had two other artists on there accuse me (also in a rather ugly way). One artist I had never even seen her work, and the other I had seen but hers was a completely different body of work than mine... I'm still wondering why they would think I copied them when my artwork had a totally different feel/look. I knew I didn' steal anything, but all the same, it still stung! So I empathize with your friend.
He will probably check more often now.
It is disturbing to hear. Facebook does have options on business page that would not allow others to post
on your page. As for comments-well you need to be vigilent and check often.