Monday, April 4, 2011
Blog 10- online anonymity
Qian and Scott discussed how anonymity is used in online blog forums. A pseudonym or a real name is equally acceptable to use and the provision of any other personal profile information, such as one's real name, gender, date of birth, location, job, homepage, and interests, is optional. Users can select to share or withhold their profile information as they like. I do think that in some cases, like in WoW, anonymity is very important. If a person on WoW used their real name I think it would increase the chance of online harassment, especially by people who take the game very very seriously. Like the former girl gamer discussed in her posting, girl gamers are harassed on the game either because no one believes their a girl or pervs won’t leave them alone. I think that anonymity in online games give people more freedom to do what they what (within the rules of the games). If one character kills another character they might get constant harassed about it if they’re real name was shown. Just by knowing someone’s name nowadays means that you can find out almost anything about them online (if youre willing to pay a few bucks or are a really good hacker) like their address, phone number, and email address. Someone who doesn’t have all the cards in their deck might track down someone and want to have a face to face meeting with them. Yes, online anonymity does give people room to fib and lie here and there but I feel like it also gives people security in some cases.
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Agreed, anonymity does give people a little leeway in their online identity, but like you said, they should be aware that if the need arises, your identity can be found out, so you should still behave as if your real name and contact info was out there.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you pointed out that often (usually?) a dedicated person can find out who you are, unless you've taken great pains to hide your identity. And yet, as you note, anonymity can have benefits for people, particularly in certain contexts.
ReplyDeleteAgree, too much information on the web allows mischievous people to probe and lie. Anonymity is a mess in this world. Too many underminded plots going on today.
ReplyDeleteI used the internet to find out every bit of information about someone recently...i'm not going to go into specifics but a man was cheating on his wife and we knew the woman's name and i found out her number, home address, where she worked, where he parents lived, and her email...all i had to do was pay like 10 dollars to get all the information...i found out all this and im not a hacker or anything!
ReplyDeleteMandy...wow! As for our own disclosure, I feel like it is hard to monitor what is out there. If you sign up for something sometimes your information is given to other parties ect... It is all so overwhelming.
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