secondly, fan pages also differ. for example, this one is just a wikipedia info put as a fan page.

while this one is a really functioning fan page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/shakira?sk=wall, that is run if not by a singer herself but by authorised person/people.

btw, to help you out with PM’s office contacts: http://gov.uz/en/government/1264 that’s a public info and if you haven’t tried harder to find it then don’t blame me.

cheers and may Allah bless all of us

The analysis isn’t useless *because the page stands*. It really does matter that it’s a *personal* page with friend status having to be requested and granted — *not* a fan page where you can just “like” the page. Fan pages are easy to make and dozens of them can spring up around a public figure. Not so a personal page.

That means this page is actively maintained and kept looking like something the prime minister would make, and not being easily stopped — as it could be, given its nature.

You didn’t answer my question: Did you get an ambivalent answer, or you relayed it as ambivalent and haven’t pressed it. What’s up? Given all the sensitivity that the Uzbek government has shown to “defamation,” we have to wonder how they could let the identity of the very prime minister himself be speculated upon in this fashion.

We have no way of knowing it’s fake when *it persists*. Who could be behind it? Why would somebody bother to make a fake page for the prime minister himself — and how could they last so long and attract so many friends?

I’ve put in a friendship request to this account and gotten no response and I’ll try emailing the prime minister’s office, but say, if you have his number on your speed dial, please pass it along!

relax, take it easy and enjoy the upcoming holiday season! :)

an Uzbek, who lives in Uzbekistan

relax, take it easy and enjoy the upcoming holiday season! :)

an Uzbek, who lives in Uzbekistan

First of all, it’s an individual account with friending capacity, not a *page* with “liking” capacity. Those are different things in Facebook. It’s true that regarding public figures, Facebook’s management would probably like to err on the side of free expression, and let public figures have pages made about them — some figures have many such pages.

But this is, again, a personal account. And that’s identity theft, if it isn’t him or his approved agents operating it. So I’m frankly not buying this story that they “can’t” get this page removed. Of course they can. I speak from experience. I’ve had people make fake Twitter and fake Facebook accounts using my name and picture, and I’ve had them removed by presenting an appeal and a fax of my driver’s license, in a matter of weeks. You can make legitimate parody or critical accounts of public figures. What you can’t do is make something pretending exactly to be them.

I find this statement odd, “neweurasia contacted the Prime Minster’s office to check whether the page was authentic or a knockoff and the latter seem to be the case (not surprisingly)”

Why such an ambivalent statement? Either it is the case or it is not the case. Why “seems to be the case”? Were they not definitive? What did they say, exactly, in this office? Or are they being ambivalent precisely because they want to gain whatever value they can out of this fake account with its pro-Western leanings because it does them no harm?

It’s not “silly and ridiculous” to debate the meaning of pages on Facebook purporting to be those of public figures. Facebook doesn’t have a check-mark “verification” sign like Twitter, so we can’t know definitively. Therefore we get to ask, and ask whether in fact it’s a supporter doing it for political reasons, with tacit approval, or what it is.

In short, you have not proved this page to be unauthentic because the report you’ve brought back from the PM’s office — unless you can elaborate further — is ambiguous. And the claim that they can’t get it removed is not just true — they are either not really trying, or don’t understand how to file a complaint or are lying.