Living La Vida Diga

Once upon a time, when I felt the above picture fairly represented my age and appearance, I used it on my web site. One day I was looking at it and realized how unprofessional I appeared--very unfitting and overly casual for one in my position. What to do, what to do....

Using Photoshop, I copied my right hand, inverted it, pasted it on to my left hand, did some touch-up, and presto, I went from sloppy to preppy in under 30 minutes. No more unsightly hand--the past rectified through digital doctoring. The picture became my web presence for many years.

• Is what I did illegal? Should it be?
• Was it impolite? Do you feel misled?
• Do you care?
• Were you harmed in any way by not knowing?

Bigger Questions:

• Do you own your digital image?
• If so, can you sell it to someone else?
• Should you be allowed to digitally represent yourself however you like?
• Should you have to warn the rest of us when you alter your image significantly? 
• What do we mean by "signficantly"?

• As a public service, devise a digital manipulation scale from 1to 10 (the "Digimansc") to alert us to changes in representations of "reality." The rating would appear on a warning label included with all media. Using a color filter might be a 1, superimposing your head on someone else's body might be a 10. 
• Ask for voluntary compliance in using the Digimansc. Failing that, legally require media producers to adopt it. 

Or:

• Caveat emptor. Get over it. It's a free country. And it's a fine line between satire and deliberate misrepresentation. Give the artistes the space they need. 

• One person's sense of journalistic indignation is another person's sense of artistic opportunity... 
• One person's lack of responsibility is another person's freedom of speech...
• One person's need for social standards is another person's bureacratic nightmare...
• One person's individual right is another person's lack of social obligation...

• Are there better laws? Better ways to deal with this? Are the laws we need to address this already in place, we just need to adapt them to cyberia?
• Who would we trust to devise the Digimansc? Would you trust yourself to be part of it?
• How much individual liberty are you are willing to give up in the name of social responsibility?
• What would you tell your kids to do?