Summary
In “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community,” Judith Donath describes how identity is established in virtual communities, and how identity can be ambiguous due to deception. Donath uses a study on Usenet, a newsgroup in which users can post about specified topics. Key indications of identification include account name, email domain, identity in writing style (voice/language), and signature. Although users are assumed to be who they say they are, these forms of identification can easily be easily faked and used to deceive other users. Categories of deception include trolls, impersonation, and identity concealment. Additionally, the balance between privacy, credibility, and self-expression has still not been “perfected,” such that a community can feel secure about the information they post (or read).
“4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community” details the effects of anonymity and ephemerality in online communities, in particular 4chan’s /b/ discussion board. On 4chan, posts get pushed off the first page by newer posts, and remain on the top of the first page if the post is popular (has users actively replying). It was found that most posts have short lifespans – 3.9 minutes on average – which displays the fast pace of the /b/ board. 90% of users on /b/ were found to be anonymous, which is suggested to be because it allows for more intimate and open conversation, and new ideas.
Reflection
In the first paper, I found it particularly interesting that email domain was an indication of credibility. Since I typically don’t use websites that rely on the email domain for a user account, I never considered that it would be something that users look at to determine if someone is a reliable source of information. This reminded me of checking top-level domains of websites (.org, .com, .net) when checking sources for research or essays, which is something I and many other students do more often. In this section, Donath uses various examples of prejudice based on email domain – being a “loser” for having an AOL domain, not having “BIG $$$” because of a specific neighborhood/location – which made me think about social media sites that are popular today and why they don’t have usernames based on email.
In “4chan” it was intriguing to me how ephemerality is even a concept because, like email domain, it wasn’t something I ever considered even though it is apparent in social media that I use often (Snapchat, Twitter, etc.). It was interesting especially how ephemerality is affected by time of day, and that threads lasted the longest between 9-10am EST and lasted the shortest between 5-7pm EST due to activity by North American users after work/school. This reminded me of a discussion I had with a friend a year (more or less) ago about when the best time to post a photo on Instagram. This was when Instagram still displayed posts chronologically, and the best time apparently also was around 5-8pm EST since users were getting off from work/school.
Questions
- Will there ever be a balance between privacy, credibility, and self-expression?
- What do people think they gain from harmful forms of deception (catfishing/impersonation, trolling)?
- Why do recent/popular social media sites use username rather than email?
- Does using email as a form of identification on Usenet have more benefits (e.g. allows for credibility) than disadvantages (e.g. bullying)?
- Can current writing styles be categorized to determine reliability?
- Why do websites like Tumblr/Ask.fm still allow anonymity when asking questions?
- Do people enjoy the ephemerality of 4chan and other sites? Why?
