The Yes Men are a
culture jammingCulture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
activist duo and network of supporters created by
Jacques ServinJacques Servin is one of the leading members of The Yes Men, a culture jamming activist group. Their exploits in "identity correction" are documented in the films The Yes Men and The Yes Men Fix the World...
and
Igor VamosIgor Vamos, born April 15, 1968, is an internationally known multimedia artist, leading member of The Yes Men , and an associate professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute...
. Through actions of
tactical mediaTactical media is a term coined in 1997, to de note a form of media activism that privileges temporary, hit-and-run interventions in the media sphere over the creation of permanent and alternative media outlets. Tactical media describes interventionist media art practices that engage and critique...
, The Yes Men primarily aim to raise awareness about what they consider problematic social issues. To date, the duo has produced two films:
The Yes MenThe Yes Men Fix the World is a documentary film about the culture jamming exploits of The Yes Men. The film premiered in New York City and Los Angeles on October 23, 2009 and in other U.S. cities beginning on October 30...
(2003) and
The Yes Men Fix the World (2009). In these films, they impersonate entities that they dislike, a practice that they call "identity correction". The Yes Men operate under the mission statement of telling the truth and exposing lies. They create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they intend to spoof, which have led to numerous interview, conference, and TV talk show invitations. They espouse the belief that
corporationA corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public. Elaborate props are sometimes part of the ruse (e.g. Survivaball), as shown in their 2003 DVD release
The Yes Men. The Yes Men have collaborated with other groups of similar interest, including
Improv EverywhereImprov Everywhere is a comedic performance art group based in New York City, formed in 2001 by Charlie Todd. Its slogan is "We Cause Scenes."The group carries out pranks, which they call "missions", in public places...
and Steve Lambert.
Background
According to Bichlbaum, the Yes Men concept initially sprang from their creation of a fake website spoofing the
World Trade OrganizationThe World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
. To the surprise of Bichlbaum and Bonanno, many believed the site to be authentic, and the two were consequently contacted to speak at a conference in Austria. Since this time, the Yes Men have continued performing large-scale hoaxes, in what they describe as a collaborative effort with journalists to help the media tell stories which they believe are important.
The Yes Men often deploy a satirical approach: they pose as a powerful entity (typically a corporate or government representative or executive) and make ridiculous and shocking comments that caricature the ideological position of the organisation or person. Furthermore, they acknowledge the idea that many corporate or government entities manipulate their ideology using
spinIn public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure...
; in response, the Yes Men use this power of spin to their own advantage, and use media outlets to disseminate their personal interpretation of the situation. A sense of humor and shock value is usually employed to make these issues more palatable to the general public and to call greater media attention to stories of interest. Some of these outrageous ideas include the possibility to sell one's vote or that the poor should consume recycled human waste. On most occasions, little to no shock or outrage is publicly evoked in response to their prank.
On occasion, the Yes Men's phony spokesperson will make announcements that represent fictitious scenarios for the
anti-globalization movementThe anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...
or opponents of
corporate crimeIn criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation , or by individuals acting on behalf of a corporation or other business entity...
. The result often heed false news reports which cover the demise of the
World Trade OrganizationThe World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
, or Dow Chemical paying compensation to the victims of the
Bhopal disasterThe Bhopal disaster also known as Bhopal Gas Tragedy was a gas leak incident in India, considered one of the world's worst industrial catastrophes. It occurred on the night of December 2–3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India...
, which the Yes Men intend to provide publicity for problems concerning these organizations. One of the effects of apologizing and promising support on behalf of an organization is that the organization is then later forced to re-acknowledge the event in question and retract all of the proposed good will. This served to further publicize the negative event of the organization and sets-up the organization to look bad for taking back any support The Yes Men offered under the name of their organization.
The Yes Men have posed as spokespeople for the WTO, McDonalds, Dow Chemical, and the
United States Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentThe United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
. The two leading members of the Yes Men are known by a number of aliases, most recently, and in film, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. Their real names are
Jacques ServinJacques Servin is one of the leading members of The Yes Men, a culture jamming activist group. Their exploits in "identity correction" are documented in the films The Yes Men and The Yes Men Fix the World...
and
Igor VamosIgor Vamos, born April 15, 1968, is an internationally known multimedia artist, leading member of The Yes Men , and an associate professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute...
, respectively. Servin is an author of experimental fiction, and was known for being the man who inserted images of men kissing in the computer game
SimCopterSimCopter is a 1996 computer game from Maxis. This game is a 3D offshoot from Maxis's normal fare, putting the player into a 3D city. Like Streets of SimCity, SimCopter lets the user import SimCity 2000 maps into the game.- Objective :...
. Vamos is an associate professor of media arts at
Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteStephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
, New York. They are assisted by numerous people across the globe. There are other full time members, such as Whitney Black and Rocco Ferrer, that take a more behind the scenes approach.
Their experiences were documented in the film
The Yes Men, distributed by United Artists, the film documentary
info warsInfo Wars is a 2004 film which shows the mechanics of modern information warfare and media hacking. The featured stories are intertwined but circle around the central subject of the film: How the modern mass media can be used to reach certain ends by all involved parties.The film is named after...
, and the book
The Yes Men: The True Story of the End of the World Trade Organization (ISBN 0-9729529-9-3). Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno also directed a
2009The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of this year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five .- Highest-grossing films :Please note...
film entitled
The Yes Men Fix the World, which premiered at the
Sundance Film FestivalThe Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. In 2009 they launched their online video channel on
BabelgumBabelgum is a free to view Internet television platform supported by advertising. The project was set up in 2005 by Italian media and telecommunications entrepreneur Silvio Scaglia and scientist Erik Lumer, with the aim of developing interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms...
.
George W. Bush
One of the Yes Men's first pranks was the satirical website www.gwbush.com, established for the 2000 US presidential election to draw attention to alleged hypocrisies on Bush's actual website. When asked about the site in a press conference on May 21, 1999, Bush responded that the website had gone too far in criticizing him.
In 2004, the Yes Men went on tour posing as the group "Yes, Bush Can!" and encouraged supporters to sign a "Patriot Pledge" agreeing to keep nuclear waste in their backyard and send their children off to war. They appeared at the
2004 Republican National ConventionThe 2004 Republican National Convention, the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States, took place from August 30 to September 2, 2004 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York...
and drove across the country at first in an RV with a George W. Bush body wrap, and then in a painted van.
Ice Age Petition
The Yes Men posed as working as part of the Bush-Cheney campaign. They carried around a petition asking for signatures to support
global warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
because America's competing countries will suffer while America only bears minor side-effects.
Dow Chemical
On December 3, 2004, the twentieth anniversary of the
Bhopal disasterThe Bhopal disaster also known as Bhopal Gas Tragedy was a gas leak incident in India, considered one of the world's worst industrial catastrophes. It occurred on the night of December 2–3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India...
, Andy Bichlbaum appeared on
BBC WorldBBC World News is the BBC's international news and current affairs television channel. It has the largest audience of any BBC channel in the world...
as "Jude Finisterra", a
Dow ChemicalThe Dow Chemical Company is a multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. As of 2007, it is the second largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue and as of February 2009, the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization .Dow...
spokesman. Dow is the owner of
Union CarbideUnion Carbide Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. It currently employs more than 2,400 people. Union Carbide primarily produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume...
, the company responsible for the chemical disaster which killed thousands and left over 120,000 requiring lifelong care.
On their fake Dow Chemical website, the Yes Men said that Dow Chemical Company had no intention whatsoever of repairing the damage. The real company received considerable backlash, and both the real Dow and the phony Dow denied the statements, but Dow took no real action.
The Yes Men decided to pressure Dow further, so as "Finisterra," Bichlbaum went on the news to claim that Dow planned to liquidate Union Carbide and use the resulting $12 billion to pay for medical care, clean up the site, and fund research into the hazards of other Dow products. After two hours of wide coverage, Dow issued a press release denying the statement, ensuring even greater coverage of the phony news of a cleanup. By the time the original story was discredited, Dow's stock had declined in value by $2 billion.
After the original interview was revealed as a hoax, Bichlbaum appeared in a follow-up interview on the United Kingdom's Channel 4 news. During the interview he was asked if he had considered the emotions and reaction of the people of Bhopal when producing the hoax. According to the interviewer, "there were many people in tears" upon having learned of the hoax. Bichlbaum said that, in comparison, what distress he had caused the people was minimal to that for which Dow was responsible. The Yes Men claim on their website that they have been told by contacts in Bhopal that once they had got over their disappointment that it wasn't real, they were pleased about the stunt and thought it had helped to raise awareness of their plight.
At the International Payments Conference on April 28, 2005, 'Dow representative' "Erastus Hamm" unveiled Acceptable Risk, the Acceptable Risk Calculator, and the Acceptable Risk mascot — a life-sized golden skeleton named Gilda — to an audience of about 70 banking professionals.
WTO
One of the Yes Men's most famous pranks is placing a "corrected"
WTOThe World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
website at http://www.gatt.org/ (
General Agreement on Tariffs and TradeThe General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization . GATT was signed in 1947 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World...
). The fake site began to receive real emails from confused visitors, including invitations to address various elite groups on behalf of the WTO, to which they responded as if they were the actual WTO.
Appearing in newly purchased suits, the Yes Men gave speeches encouraging corporations to buy votes directly from citizens. They argued that the US Civil War was a waste of money because Third World countries now willingly supply equivalent slaves. They also urged people to listen to the WTO instead of the facts. They then unveiled a gold spandex body suit that they claimed would allow productivity to increase, as managers would not have to oversee workers in person but could keep track of them via images on an attached screen as well as implanted sensors.
New Orleans and HUD
The Yes Men appeared on August 28, 2006 at a "Housing Summit" in New Orleans, taking the stage along with New Orleans Mayor
Ray NaginClarence Ray Nagin, Jr. is a former mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Nagin gained international note in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the New Orleans area....
and Louisiana Governor
Kathleen BlancoKathleen Babineaux Blanco was the 54th Governor of Louisiana, having served from January 2004 until January 2008. She was the first woman to be elected to the office of governor of Louisiana....
. Before an audience composed mostly of real estate developers, one of the Yes Men gave a speech in which he claimed to be Rene Oswin, a fictitious "assistant under-secretary" at the
United States Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentThe United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
(HUD). In his speech he claimed that HUD would reopen public housing facilities that had been closed since
Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
struck in August 2005. He said that HUD had changed its mind about tearing down the undamaged housing units, and would not tear down the housing projects, as they had planned to do in order to replace them with mixed-income development.
HUD has called this prank, which brought attention to the lack of affordable housing, a "cruel hoax." A former resident of the community was quoted by Bichlbaum as saying, "do whatever's most effective, do it, don't worry about how it affects us," however. HUD spokeswoman Donna White said no one named "Rene Oswin" works for the department. White commented, "I'm like, who the heck is that?"
The fictitious Oswin also announced that the big oil companies would contribute some of their record profits to rebuild the wetlands destroyed by the construction of oil tanker canals to prevent the city from being inundated by future hurricanes.
ExxonMobil
On June 14, 2007, the Yes Men acted during
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's largest oil conference in
CalgaryCalgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
,
AlbertaAlberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, posing as
ExxonMobilExxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
and
National Petroleum CouncilThe National Petroleum Council is an American advisory committee representing oil and natural gas industry views to the Secretary of Energy.The council was established in 1946 at the request of President Harry S. Truman to represent industry views on any matters relating to oil and natural gas...
(NPC) representatives. In front of more than 300 oilmen, the NPC was expected to deliver the long-awaited conclusions of a study commissioned by
U.S. Energy SecretaryThe United States Secretary of Energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the President's Cabinet, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was formed on October 1, 1977 with the creation of the Department of Energy when President Jimmy...
Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed by former ExxonMobil CEO
Lee RaymondLee R. Raymond was the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of ExxonMobil from 1999 to 2005. He had previously been the CEO of Exxon since 1993. He joined the company in 1963 and has been president since 1987 and a director since 1984....
, who is also the chair of the study. When the Yes Men arrived at the conference they said that
Lee RaymondLee R. Raymond was the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of ExxonMobil from 1999 to 2005. He had previously been the CEO of Exxon since 1993. He joined the company in 1963 and has been president since 1987 and a director since 1984....
(the promised speaker) was unable to make it due to a pressing situation with the president. The Yes Men then went on to give a presentation in place of Lee Raymond.
In the actual speech, the "NPC rep" announced that current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive processing of Alberta's oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who would die into oil.
The project, called
Vivoleum, would work in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production. The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit "commemorative candles". At this point, event security recognized the Yes Men and forced them off stage, and the 'punchline' — that the candles were made of Vivoleum obtained from the flesh of an "Exxon janitor" who died as a result of cleaning up a toxic spill — was not delivered to the audience, but only to reporters.
Milton Friedman documentary
In July 2007, in order to obtain interviews with right wing think tanks, the Yes Men pretended to be filming a documentary about
Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...
. (In fact, their documentary, The Yes Men Fix the World, did end up speaking about Friedman at length.) After interviewing members of the
Competitive Enterprise InstituteThe Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit think tank founded on March 9, 1984 in Washington, D.C. by lobbyist Fred L. Smith, Jr to advance economic liberty and fight over-regulation by big government...
and the
American Enterprise InstituteThe American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
, several of whom appear in the film, the Yes Men were foiled at the
Cato InstituteThe Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
by libertarian activists
BureaucrashBureaucrash is an international network of libertarian activists whose stated goals are "decreasing the scope of government" and "increasing individual freedom" which engages in culture jamming.-History:...
, one of whose members had been hanging around the Competitive Enterprise Institute two days before and recognized the duo. On their way out, Bureaucrash members threw colored powder at the Yes Men in a reference to the rainbow.
BP
On March 10, 2008, the Yes Men responded to a letter from
BPBP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
(merged from British Petroleum and Amoco) accusing them of copyright violation, with a letter apologizing for having forgotten BP with the spoof site half-completed and that "BP does every bit as much damage to this planet as does Exxon, Halliburton, or any other more obviously nefarious company" and deserves its own properly completed spoof site.
Captain Euro
In 1999, the Yes Men visited the offices of Twelve Star Communications, creators of the
EurofederalistA europhile is a person who is fond of, admires, or even loves European culture, society, history, food, etc. In politics, it may be used to imply Pro-Europeanism, or support for the European Union, often disapprovingly...
superhero
Captain EuroCaptain Euro is a fictional comic book-style superhero character, created in 1999 as a way to promote the European Union, and specifically the Euro, the single European currency that arrived in 2002. The character has been featured on a website, captaineuro.com, since 1999, but has not appeared in...
, "a comic book character designed to promote European unification with young children." Inside, the impostors discover the hidden, dark truth about European Unification.
New York Times
The Yes Men (along with
the Anti-Advertising Agency) also claimed partial responsibility for a prank on November 12, 2008, where approximately 80,000 copies of a fake edition of the July 4, 2009 edition of
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
were handed out on the streets of New York and Los Angeles. The fake edition shows their ideas for a better future with headlines such as
Iraq War Ends and
Nation Sets Its Sights on Building Sane Economy. The front page contained a spoofed motto, "All the News We Hope to Print" from the famous phrase "All the news that's fit to print". Articles in the paper announce dozens of new initiatives, including an establishment of national health care, a maximum wage for C.E.O.s and an article wherein
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
accuses himself of treason for his actions during his years as president. There is also a Reuters photo of the fake cover page and a fake website, http://www.nytimes-se.com/.
Alex S. JonesAlex S. Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government since July 1, 2000. Jones is also a lecturer at the school, occupying the Laurence M...
, a former
Times reporter and media scholar, said of the paper, "I would say if you’ve got one, hold on to it...it will probably be a collector’s item. I’m just glad someone thinks
The New York Times print edition is worthy of an elaborate hoax. A Web spoof would have been infinitely easier. But creating a print newspaper and handing it out at subway stations? That takes a lot of effort."
New York Post and SurvivaBall
On September 21, 2009, one day before a UN summit lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009, over 2,000 volunteers distributed throughout New York City a 32-page "special edition"
New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, blaring headlines (cover story "We're Screwed") that the city could face deadly heat waves, extreme flooding, and other lethal effects of global warming within the next few decades. The paper has been created by the Yes Men and a coalition of activists as a wake-up call to action on climate change. Other articles describe the Pentagon's alarmed response to
global warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, the U.S. government's minuscule response, China's advanced alternative energy program, and how the Copenhagen climate talks could be a "Flopenhagen". There is also a fake website. A "climate change horoscope" satire on the Sally Brompton horoscope in the Post was commissioned from an environmental activist horoscope writer but was not published.
On September 22, 2009 the Yes Men demonstrated on the alleged behalf of
HalliburtonHalliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....
and dozens of other climate threatening corporations an inflatable ball-shaped costume known as the SurvivaBall, claiming it was a self contained living system for surviving disasters caused by global warming. Over two dozen people wore the SurvivaBall costumes as it was demonstrated in the East River. Police shut down the demonstration for lack of a permit. Co-founder of the Yes Men, Andy Bichlbaum, was arrested on an outstanding parking ticket charge and a handful of other Yes Men were served with summons and tickets for disorderly behavior and creating hazardous conditions.
The SurvivaBall was also used in a protest at the steps of the capitol. The protesting balls demanded action be taken on global warming to achieve the
350.org350.org is an international environmental organization, headed by author Bill McKibben, with the goal of building a global grassroots movement to raise awareness of anthropogenic climate change, to confront climate change denial, and to cut emissions of one of the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide,...
goal. Their strategy was to block the entrance until the government comes to a binding agreement on climate change. Further information on the SurvivaBall concept can be found on the mock website http://www.survivaball.com/index.php.
US Chamber of Commerce
On October 19, 2009, the Yes Men spoofed the
United States Chamber of CommerceThe United States Chamber of Commerce is an American lobbying group representing the interests of many businesses and trade associations. It is not an agency of the United States government....
, declaring a U-turn on their climate change policy. The Yes Men were not able to complete the conference without being exposed as a hoax, although their message that the United States Chamber of Commerce needs to reevaluate their direction in terms of clean energy was their primary concern and was received. Major TV and news organisations carried this story briefly before the hoax was uncovered. The US Chamber of Commerce two weeks later did change their official policy though, according to
Al GoreAlbert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
it was "not because of" the Yes Men's stunt. The Chamber has launched a lawsuit against The Yes Men who will be defended by the
Electronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
.
The Yes Men released a film documenting this prank bundled with their 2009 film
The Yes Men Fix the World. This has been released as a "
P2PPeer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
Edition" version available for free download using a
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
copyright by available from
EZTV among other sources. In the film they say their choice to release this way is to counteract the US Chamber of Commerce lawsuit provision that film of the hoax be destroyed - an attempted example of the Streisand effect.
Canadian environment minister
During the
2009 United Nations Climate Change ConferenceThe 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 December and 18 December. The conference included the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate...
in
CopenhagenCopenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, the Yes Men put out a statement in which they purported to be the Canadian environment minister,
Jim PrenticeJames "Jim" Prentice, PC, QC is a Canadian lawyer, and politician. In the 2004 federal election he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a candidate of the Conservative Party of Canada...
. The statement pledged to cut carbon emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. The statement was followed by a response from the Ugandan delegation, praising the statement, that was also faked. Another fake statement was then put out blasting the falsehoods of the original fake statement. A fake story in a European edition of the
Wall Street Journal was also posted online. Jim Prentice described the hoax as "undesirable".
Niger Delta Hoax
On March 28, 2010, a video was released on YouTube with the title "Shell: We are sorry". A man called Bradford Houppe, from the Ethical Affairs Committee at Royal Dutch Shell gave a four minute long apology to the people of the Niger Delta for ruining their land, water, and communities.
This video was created in response to the numerous environmental problems and human rights violations that have occurred in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria since Shell began oil exploration in the region decades ago. Shell has yet to make any official statement about this video.
GE Tax Refund Hoax reported by the AP
On April 13, 2011, a hoax website with an URL similar to that of the GE press domain (genewscenter.com) designed to look like the GE news center website. The hoax site posted the claim "GE Responds to Public Outcry – Will Donate Entire $3.2 Billion Tax Refund to Help Offset Cuts and Save American Jobs." and it seems that the
APThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported the story as fact, as reported by Good.
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