Tag: Online Identities

Replied to The digital wall by David TrussDavid Truss (daily-ink.davidtruss.com)

What is it about the internet that gives people permission to be awful and mean to others? I follow an astrophysicist on social media. She’s brilliant, and makes great content. She also posted a rant about all the misogynistic comments she gets from men commenting on her rather than her content. I’m not sharing any more details because it looks like she took the video down.

Source: The Digital Wall by David Truss

David, I have long wondered about the problem of on and offline. As an educator, are there any strategies or approaches that you have put in place to encourage empathy online, as well as an understanding of the impact of such practices? I recently did a short course on cyber security and awareness, my feeling is that such comments risk forming an informal character reference in a world beyond forgetting.

I think the future of hacking and cyber attacks is the linking of different datasets that we openly share online through data brokers to provide an insight and awareness of individuals that will open up new possibilities.

Source: Cyber Security & Awareness – Primary Years (CSER MOOC) by Aaron Davis

Ironically, looking back through my blog I actually came across a previous post and comment on your blog relating to the difference between our online and offline persona.

I can see that we are not our online personas. They are different than us. Yet they can say a lot about… but they don’t always say what we think they say.

Source: Our Online Persona by David Truss

Bookmarked The biggest lie we tell on the internet is ourselves (Mashable)

It isn’t just our age, height and weight — we also routinely fib about our identity in order to fit in.

Chris Taylor discusses the way we lie about our identity to fit in. This is such an interesting question, especially when read alongside Zeynep Tufekci’s reflection of online trust.
Bookmarked When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online (The Atlantic)

Googling yourself has become a rite of passage.

Taylor Lorenz discusses the ways in which children are having profiles developed before they are even aware. Although the focus is on ‘sharingting’, Lorenz also touches on schools and the part that they play. It is interesting to consider this post alongside Clive Thompson’s piece ‘Why Even the Worst Bloggers Are Making Us Smarter‘. I am also left wondering about what all this might mean in a world of ‘bring your own data‘?
Liked The case for anonymity online by Ian O’Byrne (wiobyrne.com)

Morio & Buchholz (2009) separated this into three levels (visual anonymity, disassociation with real and online identities, and lack of identifiability.

  • Visual anonymity – When individuals communicate without seeing each other. A good example of that is using text-based chatting programs over the Internet. People’s physical appearances are obscured in that scenario.
  • Dissociation of real and online identities – A single individual can create more than one online identity using more than one screen name & avatars. Individuals then have the ability to become more than one person with dissimilar personalities. They also have the ability to adopt new genders & races.
  • Lack of identifiability – This is the level closest to true anonymity online. When individuals cannot be identified, their behaviors are not distinguishable from others. An example would be an online forum in which people can post anonymous comments without attaching usernames to that post.
Replied to Online disinhibition effect by Ian O’Byrne (W. Ian O’Byrne)

Suler might suggest that benign disinhibition brings us together and toxic disinhibition rips us apart.

Saying things in digital spaces it may seem less real, more impersonal, and even dehumanizing because the person you are addressing may be unknown and not physically in front of you. We need to consider that our society is slowly coming to terms with these digital identities that we construct. We also need to understand that our communications are asynchronous in nature. This means that the trail of comments, likes, and links stays around long after we’ve moved on.

This is an interesting discussion Ian. I have been thinking about the online/off dualism while reading Zeynep Tufekci’s Twitter and Teargas:

Rather than connecting with people who are like them only in ascribed characteristics — things we mostly acquire from birth, like family, race, and social class (though this one can change throughout one’s life)—many people have the opportunity to seek connections with others who share similar interests and motivations. Of course, place, race, family, gender, and social class continue to play a very important role in structuring human relationships—but the scope and the scale of their power and their role as a social mechanism have shifted and changed as modernity advanced.(Page 10)

I am really intrigued by Tufekci’s discussion of the networked public sphere.

Liked Why do people say things online they would never say face-to-face? (W. Ian O’Byrne)

I’m left wondering why someone would choose to share content like this openly online. I’m wondering why an individual would chose to share this type of content about a friend or family member. I’m wondering if the person thought that others would see it…or if we would see it. I wonder what the intended reaction to this comment should have been.

Bookmarked The New York Times Fired My Doppelgänger by Quinn Norton (The Atlantic)

It is strange to see such a version of yourself invented and destroyed by networked rage. It made me sad and angry, but even more, I think, it inspired a horrified confusion in myself and those familiar with my work and my character. A digital effigy of me was built and burned.

Quinn Norton discusses the complexities of online identity and the associated context collapse. She shares her experience of being hired and fired by the New York Times after a Twitter account was created that retweeted the past out of context.

Marginalia

Don’t internet angry. If you’re angry, internet later.

Not everyone believes loving engagement is the best way to fight evil beliefs, but it has a good track record. Not everyone is in a position to engage safely with racists, sexists, anti-Semites, and homophobes, but for those who are, it’s a powerful tool.

We are powerful creatures, but power must come with gentleness and responsibility. No one prepared us for this, no one trained us, no one came before us with an understanding of our world. There were hints, and wise people, and I lean on and cherish them. But their philosophies and imaginations can only take us so far. We have to build our own philosophies and imagine great futures for our world in order to have any futures at all. Let mercy guide us forward in these troubled times. Let yourself imagine, because imagination is the wellspring of hope. Here, in the beginning of the 21st century, hope is our duty to the future.

Liked Digital Identities: Six Key Selves of Networked Publics | the theoryblog (theory.cribchronicles.com)

1. The Performative, Public Self

2. The Quantified – or Articulated – Self

3. The Participatory Self

4. The Asynchronous Self

5. The PolySocial – or Augmented Reality – Self

6. The Neo-Liberal, Branded Self