Abstract
Anonymity on the internet is a contentious issue of
great debate and has been since the inception of the internet. Constitutional
rights and charters are being called into question in Canadian and American
courtrooms, often siding with freedom of speech over full disclosure. However,
the argument frequently depends on the nature and motivation of the desired
anonymity. Here we will explore how anonymity is defined in a digital world and
the positive and negative implications it bares on digital content.
Treatment
The term anonymity, “derived from the Greek
anonymia, meaning without a “name” or “namelessness.”” is defined as the state
of being anonymous (Wikipedia contributors, 2011). The long standing history of
anonymity in media has oftentimes served a political purpose or acted as a safeguard
against persecution, however, at the dawn of a digital era the right to
anonymity afforded to Canadians and Americans alike has been called into
question. With the launch of platforms like Google+, which requires real names
as opposed to pseudonyms, there appears to be a fundamental shift occurring in
the quest for honesty in the digital plain. Wired magazine, in its October 2011
issue, has an article entitled, “How Google got social networking right
(finally)” (Levy) where he discusses how this platform is what people want. Yet,
“persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been
able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at
all.” (Rowland, 2003) Given that “anonymity and pseudonymity are built into the
architecture of the Net”, (Wallace, 1999) the question remains: how do you
strike a balance between anonymity and responsibility? And if so, how do we
gauge online content in an age of anonymity?
One aspect of the digital plain that encourages
theoretical discourse is the application of social media platforms in public
occurrences. Take, for example, the
recent strike in the spring of 2011 at Vancouver Island University (VIU). The
University had a Facebook page that it uses on a regular basis for marketing
purposed. In addition the Faulty Association (VIUFA), which was the striking party,
created its own Facebook page. While respectful and informative debates
occurred and were encouraged, incidences of defamatory and harassing comments
became prevalent. One student went so far as to create four different
pseudonyms to facilitate contrived conversations. A single individual and a
single department were targeted online which then escalated to threatening emails
and phone calls. An interesting experience was noted by the single individual
targeted: despite the numerous opportunities to engage in face to face
communication with her, no single attack occurred outside of a distanced environment.
When I had the opportunity to speak with a former professor and now colleague
who, during the strike, claimed that individuals in the department that I work
in were illiterate and incompetent; he was very apathetic about the situation.
It wasn’t until I verbally connected that he was in fact calling me, a former
student, illiterate and incompetent that he exhibited remorse and connected his
defamation to individual people with professional reputations. Had I not been standing
in front of him, would that have been the case? I don’t believe so. When,
unchallenged, we are unwilling to take responsibility for our actions in the
digital plain, how reliable does our academic discourse become in the same
realm? A similar situation occurred in Tacoma, Washington in 2004 when a group
of ethnically identified youths were attacking middle to old age white males and
eventually brutally murdered an elderly man. When the local news agencies
opened the conversation to the public in a fully anonymous format, racist and hateful
messages dominated the conversation. Yet, when the same community was given the
opportunity for a public, open forum the comments focused on solutions and understanding
with minimal, civil criticisms. (Coffey and Woolworth, 2004) With so wide of a
disconnect between the public face and the digital façade, the questioning of
the rights of anonymity starts to sound more legitimate.
This leads to the idea of implementing a form of a
gatekeeper in the digital realm, which has been suggested as a solution to discourage
the above mentioned incidents and the prevalence of anonymity. One argument is
that imposing free speech on the internet without a gatekeeper is dangerous
however that argument “presupposes that anonymous speech is acceptable only if
prescribed by an informed elite”. (Wallace, 1999) Yes, the internet is dangerous
without a gatekeeper. In searching for valid, reliable content on the internet,
as with any other media platform, do we not already look to the informed elite
to provide such content just as we look to peer reviewed articles for data? In
the organized chaos that is the World Wide Web we reach for toolboxes (Pash, 2011;
Shermer, 2009) and website registrations (e.g. easywhois.com) to help us weed out the
biased and uninformed content but this is getting harder and harder to do.
On the other hand, where anonymity is a draw to
the augmented reality available to those engaging in the internet world, the
quest for realism becomes an exercise in critical thinking for those
unplugged from the anonymous realm. It also becomes a danger for the predatory
few who will take advantage of this naïveté. Here is where the great debates
are occurring in our judicial systems; both American and Canadian alike. Both
the First Amendment in the Constitution of the United States and the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedom have been upheld in free speech cases (Christopherson,
2006), however, free speech does not negate criminal activity. In their
publication of on Stalking, Criminal Harassment and Cyberbullying, the BC
branch of the Canadian Bar Association states that, “Cyberbullying is a type of
harassment using new technology. Whether it is criminal harassment depends on
the facts of a case. Cyberbullies use social media (such as Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube), blogs, texting, instant messaging, and other internet avenues to
engage in deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour intended to harm,
embarrass, or slander someone. Although their work is public, cyberbullies are
anonymous and it is often harder to identify and stop them.” (Stalking, 2011) Harassment
is a criminal act, as is defamation, and yet social media platforms run rampant
with it. How does one gauge friend or foe? Similarly, how does one gauge valid content
verses personal opinion? Legitimate platforms versus facades developed as
smokescreens for racist or ignorant propaganda? Where high school and undergraduate
projects (such as Anonymity
Project) are as good as, if not better that professional digital content,
it is getting harder and harder to determine. This is particularly evident where
the very definition of friend becomes an online, anonymous community like Postsecret
that forms support networks often acting as crisis intervention. As stated earlier,
the positive and negative aspects of anonymity are highly dependent on the implications
it bares on the digital content. The most important question becomes how do
individual cases of anonymity affect the end product of what I am engaging with,
be it social media or an in-depth, academic search for data. We become our own
peer reviewers tainted by the potential for the worst that the internet has to
offer, yet invigorated by such projects as itgetsbetter.org.
Conclusion
There is clear evidence to support the need for
anonymity. In the case of Postsecret, it saves lives. In the case of political oppression,
it topples governments. Yet for some, anonymity on the internet allows for an
open forum limited only by one’s own personal aspirations – positive or
negative. There is a great potential for as much good as there is bad on the
internet and everything in between. Knowledge is power, and knowing the woven
threads that exist concerning anonymity on the internet will hopefully empower
readers to recognize that they have the power to determine its place. Being
anonymous can help just as much as it can hinder, but that depends on us.
Sources
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Coffey,
B., & Woolworth, S. (2004) Destroy the scum, and then neuter their
families: the web forum as a vehicle for community discourse? The Social
Science Journal, 41, 1-14. DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2003.10.001
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