The Yes Men

played another one of their usually very funny jokes yesterday on the BBC. It was the anniversary of the Bhopal disaster [inlink]terry,267[/inlink] which killed (and is killing) thousands in India, with so far no restitution offered to the victims. The Yes Men have operated a site mimicking Dow's (something like this one

) for a while (and even talk about it in their movie), but apparently one BBC reporter hadn't heard of it and went looking for Dow's comments. Well they got the Yes Men's Andy Bichlbaum online who offered an interview claiming that Dow had decided enough was enough and were going to liquidate assets in order to provide compensation to the victims of Bhopal. Now enough people believed this that Dow's stock price actually plummeted

which is funny. What's not so funny is the poor people in and around Bhopal who also heard the news and had their initial elation turned to tears of disappointment and rage.
A jokes a joke, and I'm all for giving it to the corps. but this one seems to have caused more harm to first the victims themselves and second to the reputation of a news organization that does seem to give at least a slightly impartial slant to its news. So go on, and have your fun Yes Men but try to keep your real targets in sight.