[QuantumChaos]

I think we need to balance the need for deception in some cases, against the fact that tricking/pranking people is fun, and makes you look cool. There is an inherent ego boost from making other people look stupid and foolish, and that applies as much to the Sokal hoax as this.

That said, there are some reasons why I would be more in favor of using deception in your example:

- Facebook doesn't claim to have mechanisms that prevent deception. It is an extension of social life, and people are already equipped to understand that other people might lie to them. Academia claims to be robust against deception, because of the impact that a single faked academic result could have.

- The purpose of a probe into academic deception would probably be to prove that the safeguards were inadequate. This research, on the other hand, is used as evidence that people are always being dishonest when they use Facebook. It is very bad evidence for this claim. I would object to submitting a fake paper, and using it as evidence that all academics are biased.