Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

...as John Lydon said in his guise as Johnny Rotten. I awoke this morning to discover that the whole "Gary Glitter on Twitter" thing was a hoax masquerading as a "social experiment" and I am, as we say here in Glasgow, pure raging. The person behind the account, who has so far as I can tell seen fit to remain anonymous, claims that he or she devised the whole thing to highlight the ease with which paedophiles can access social networking sites such as Twitter apparently without any measures to stop them. in as much as I applaud efforts to do this, I feel that this has been entirely the wrong way to go about it. At the moment I feel used and manipulated. Good people have been conned into signing petitions that are now meaningless, people have fallen out and emotions ran high. I even contacted my MP and the Home Office and have now had to apologise for wasting their time.
I am not going to apologise or seek to mend fences with people whom I have unfollowed on Twitter - I don't think it was right for them to follow what appeared to be a disgraced convicted paedophile and I stand by that decision. I also maintain that the 18,000 people who followed the account and offered messages of support need to take a long hard look at themselves and question if it was sensible to do so. And I am grateful in a way because being outspoken and forthright on Twitter has introduced me to some really fine and good people that I probably wouldn't have come into contact with or spoken with on a day-to-day basis.
But I can't shake the feeling that however righteous and well-meaning this person's intentions were and that yes, they have got people talking about what is an issue that is often overlooked and swept under the carpet, that to have done so in such a manner has left a bad taste in my mouth, almost as bad as the thought of the person they chose to impersonate making a "comeback" ever did.