Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
14 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Advice-to-Manti-Teo-Follow-Andy-Pettittes-example.html
Note that most of the other "news" reports are trying to stick with that insane Notre Dame position that Manti had nothing to do with this, but was actually a victim. That is insane on so many levels, but the same company got away for 30 years blowing off charges that many of their preachers were sex abusers too. So there you go.
The Deadspin stuff seems to be extremely well researched, as opposed to the trash that the "respectable media" has gone with on this story. In particular,they closed the loop on how the plot was hatched, and how Manti's friend was able to got the only real victim ("Reba"
to provide the pictures central to this hoax.
And later
Note that most of the other "news" reports are trying to stick with that insane Notre Dame position that Manti had nothing to do with this, but was actually a victim. That is insane on so many levels, but the same company got away for 30 years blowing off charges that many of their preachers were sex abusers too. So there you go.
The Deadspin stuff seems to be extremely well researched, as opposed to the trash that the "respectable media" has gone with on this story. In particular,they closed the loop on how the plot was hatched, and how Manti's friend was able to got the only real victim ("Reba"
to provide the pictures central to this hoax.
All of those photographs—with one important exception—came from the private Facebook and Instagram accounts of Reba, whom we found after an exhaustive related-images search of each of Lennay's images (most of which had been modified in some way to prevent reverse image searching). We sent her a number of photographs that had appeared on Lennay's Twitter account, which is now private but apparently still active (see this retweet, for instance). One picture in particular brought Reba to a start. It had been used briefly as @LoveMSMK's Twitter avatar and later in the background of the page (we've blurred out the face, at Reba's request):
That photo hadn't appeared on the internet—at least, not to Reba's knowledge. She had taken it in December 2012 and sent it directly to an old high school acquaintance. The two hadn't talked since graduation, but the classmate, whom Reba remembered fondly, contacted her on Facebook with a somewhat convoluted request: His cousin had been in a serious car accident, and he had seen her photos before and thought she was pretty. Would she be so kind as to take a picture of herself holding up a sign reading "MSMK," to put in a slideshow to support the cousin's recovery? (He didn't explain what MSMK meant, and Reba still doesn't know.) Baffled but trusting, Reba made the sign and sent along the photo.
And now here it was on a dead girl's Twitter profile. After googling Lennay Kekua's name, Reba began to piece things together. She called up the classmate. He expressed alarm, Reba told us later, and "immediately began acting weird." "Don't worry about it," he told her. Moments after the phone call, Reba's picture was removed from the @LoveMSMK Twitter profile. Then, in a series of lengthy phone calls, Reba told us everything she knew about the classmate, a star high school quarterback turned religious musician named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.
And later
Te'o and Tuiasosopo definitely know each other. In May 2012, Te'o was retweeting Tuiasosopo, who had mentioned going to Hawaii. Wrote Te'o, "sole"—"bro," in Samoan—"u gotta come down." In June, Te'o wished Tuiasosopo a happy birthday. How they know each other isn't clear. We spoke to a woman we'll call Frieda, who had suggested on Twitter back in December that there was something fishy about Lennay Kekua. She was Facebook friends with Titus Tuiasosopo, so we asked her if she knew anything about Ronaiah.
that this was a hoax in which Te'o was a major architect and actor.
Balloon Boy in cleats.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/01/the-mythmaking-of-manti-teo.html
And now two other attention whores want to get in on the action: Reagan Mauia, an Cardinals fullback nobody ever heard of, and Troy Polamalu, the Steelers player that nobody talks about anymore since he's been injured and has most of his good days behind him.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/17/sport/manti-teo-controversy/?hpt=hp_c1
http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/01/16/teo-deadspin-story-eight-crazy-things/1840729/
