Summary

The first of these papers, “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community”, looks at the methods and displays of identity and deception in the virtual world. It sets a basis for the prevalence of deception online, by stating how the physical body is a means of identification for most people. Without it, we only have the online user’s speech which he or she can manipulate at will. However, this article also brings up some ways to better identify people online. Ultimately there are two types of signals we look at to determine honesty, assessment signals and conventional signals. Assessment signals are costlier but directly related to the trait, while conventional signals are unstable and are often used as a means of deception. Things such as voice, language, and other traits given off by the writer help us develop our identity of that person.

The paper “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community” dove into the short-lived and radical community of 4chan. It starts by identifying two key components of 4chan, which are ephemerality and anonymity. Posts made to 4chan have a very short lifespan. If people are not commenting and “bumping” a post, it is only a matter of minutes before that post will be pushed down off the website. On one hand, this keeps no archive of well-liked posts, but on the other hand it forces the website to come up with fresh and unique posts. Along with this, anonymity is a factor in 4chan’s success. It allows users to post difficult questions without feeling like they are looked down on. This also allows other users to answer difficult questions from their own experience without having to give away personal details. However, there is also a negative side to anonymity which most people are familiar with. This negative side, is the ability to post anything the mind can think of without having to be held accountable for that post. This leads to many insensitive and radical posts that have helped give 4chan its bad reputation.

 

Reflection

These articles really got me thinking about what we perceive as identity online. It made me consider the identity that other users give off from their voice and language online and what their identity actually looks like from a physical perspective. These articles also made me consider the pros and cons of anonymity online. It has great benefits for those who are in need of help and don’t want to give out personal details. It also has consequences, though, since people who want to post terrible things now have the ability to do so without direct consequence.

 

Questions

What are the consequences of anonymity when a law is broken?

Is there a greater reward posting when you get recognition?

Will anonymity always be a possibility online?

Can word language be used more easily to identify a user?

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Summary

“Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community”:

This article modeled online/virtual identity with the same model used one plants and animals. It focused on Usenet as an example of a virtual community. It focused on handicap signals, assessment signals and conventional signals as a means of determining the validity of online identities. It distinguished between person and persona and emphasized the weight of voice and style in determining and establishing virtual identity.

 

“4Chan and /b/”

This article examined the concept of identity and voice on another platform. Examining /b/, the random chat board of 4Chan, it discerned the influence of mass, chaotic, anonymous communication on a platform where threads get squeezed out as soon as there is not enough interest in them. Essentially asking the questions “What makes a subject last?” and “How does anonymity effect content?”

Reflections

One interesting note from the first article was that it is “only a matter of time until exclusive on-line addresses become symbols of status.” The phrase “bad and boujee” would then evolve to “tagged as boujee.”

The concept of voice and style being more powerful than a name or a face when establishing identity is much older than the internet. But it is not older than virtual communities, depending on what you consider “virtual”.

 

4Chan/b/ is a headache, but it serves as an interesting display of what holds people’s attention and what they are willing to share under anonymous circumstances. As menacingly chaotic as it is, there are valuable insights to common questions of humanity (within the scope of humans who use the cite).

 

Questions

In the 4Chan study, did they isolate EST users or just like at the peaks in EST?

How many unique personas can a single person have before they go completely insane?

How old is the concept of a virtual reality? What is the oldest implementation?

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Summary 

In the article, “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community”, the author analyze how identity is established online and study the conditions and effects of identity deception by studying Usenet, an online community to share information. The author found that identity plays an important role on Usenet as it helps users establish a reputation and recognition of others as well as create a sense of community. However, while most users are truthful when creating their accounts, there are those who commit identity deception. These users can be categorized as trolls, impersonators, catfishers, and those who want to hide their identity. Thus, identity in the virtual world may help create a sense of unity but it can also be easily manipulated to fit one’s needs.

The article, “4chan and/b: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community”, focuses on two studies of online ephemerality and anonymity based on the discussion board /b/, a board known for its influential role in Internet culture, hosted on 4chan.org. The purpose of these two studies is to understand how /b/ succeeds by being anonymous and ephemeral, despite the assumption that user identity and data permanence are essential to online communities.  The first study utilizes a large dataset of posts to quantify ephemerality in /b/ and found that the average lifespan was short, about 3.9 minutes, with most of the threads having no replies. The second study analyzes identity signals on 4chan and the alternative methods /b/ have used to create status and interactions. It was found that 90% of the posts were posted using the default name “Anonymous” and that instead of building a reputation, status was conveyed through the usage of textual, linguistic, and visual cues.

Reflection 

In the virtual world, identity is essential yet untrustworthy. As seen in the first article, “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community”, individuals can assume different personas with ease online. It is quite common for users on a site to create multiple accounts to serve as different roles. Additionally, some people see the internet as a place of opportunity to be who they can’t in reality; whether it’s as a different gender or a different personality. Furthermore, the flexibility of identity online can provide those who feel outcasted in reality a chance to fit in. In the second article,  “4chan and/b: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community”, the authors mention that despite /b/ being completely anonymous, a sense of status is created through usage of slang and images. While in real life where multiple aspects like physical appearance and social connections can affect how people are perceived, online people are usually judged by the content they provide and the manner in which they provide it. Thus, if someone wanted to fit in on /b/, they would mostly need to be familiar with the lingo and how the site works.

However, there is a downside of being able to create a new identity online, in that it can cause people to believe there are no consequences to their actions online. It is common to find rude and obscene comments on sites like Youtube due to people thinking what they say can’t come back to get them. This can be seen with the rise of cyber bullying as people can easily say cruel things that they wouldn’t normally say in real life. Moreover, the ability to hide behind a fake persona allows for people to easily manipulate others as discussed in the first article, whether it’s playing with someone’s romantic feelings or purposely posting  controversial things.

Questions 

• Are the people who deceive online the same in real life?
• Should people be truthful about who they are online or do they have the right to be whoever they want to be?
• Do people prefer to be anonymous or do they need a sense of identity when online?
• What are the characteristics of a long lasting thread?
• Could the short lifespan of threads represent how on average people only care about topics for a short amount of time?

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Summary:

The first article “An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community” analyzes the online community 4chan’s and its’ discussion board “/b/”. It focuses on the board’s design choices of online ephemerality and anonymity, and how they influence its culture. 4chan is an image-based bulletin board where users can post comments and images about a variety of topics. A content analysis was performed on the /b/ discussion board, showing the effects of being able to post anonymously on a large scale. Being able to be anonymous increases creativity and stronger community identity, but loses credibility and communication can be impersonal. The ability of online ephemerality is rare in the evolving online community we live in today; almost everything we do stays on the internet forever.

The second article “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” is focused on how identity is defined in an online community and the effects of identity deception and the conditions that structure it. The article studies Usenet newsgroups, which is an information exchange. People feel the need to help others by answering questions and providing knowledge. Having an identity is critical to gaining a reputation and credibility. The article also goes into deception, and why people feel the need to deceive others. Assessment signals and conventional signals are used in the Handicap Principle, which models the relation between deception and honesty.

Reflection:

Having the ability to post anonymously online is extremely dangerous. When no one can be held accountable for their actions, there are no repercussions for wrong doing online. Due to being anonymous, there is no way to guarantee the legitimacy of the information. Most information that is online, unless coming from a credible source, is incorrect in some form. I think that in order for information to be posted in an answer to a question, we should develop an efficient way to check the credibility of the source. People are more likely to believe information if it comes from a credible source, but the only way to accomplish this is to have an identity. Before reading these articles, I did not understand the true importance of having an online identity. Different personas can be created easily, so it’s hard to know exactly who each person is in real life. Although being able to talk freely increases creativity online, sometimes it may do more harm than good.

Questions:

Is there already an efficient way for people to check the credibility of a source?

What is the psychological reasoning behind deception?

In what other ways does deception play a role in online social media sites?

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Summary

The paper “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” aims to understand how identity is created in a virtual community. In addition, it examines the effects of identity deception and its causes. To achieve this, the paper focuses on the identity and deception in the Usenet newsgroups. The paper states understanding this will help create better online communities.

The paper “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community” centers around 4chan and its discussion board /b/. More specifically, it discusses anonymity and ephemerality attributes of 4chan and /b/. The paper states that the anonymity and ephemerality found in 4chan and /b/ can be used to understand the effects of anonymity and ephemerality of other online communities.

Reflection

I agree that identity plays an important role in building an online community, especially those geared towards social networking. Not only is it important to establish a person’s credibility, it holds the person accountable for their actions online. Even with identity, some people can still be hurtful and negative online. However, without identity, people are more likely to do so. For example, while Yik Yak was still around, it was known for its cyberbullies because users were “masked” from one another, making them essentially anonymous.

Similarly, the same can be said for ephemerality. In a sense, ephemerality encourages people to put less thoughts into their actions online with the idea that what they post will eventually “disappear.” As a result, people may be inclined to post whatever they want.

Although the lack of identity gives rise to trolls, it also presents the opportunity for internet personas. These are people who adopt different personalities online usually for mutual humor or entertainment unlike trolls. Many of these personas can be found on Twitter.

I understand why some people wish not to maintain an identity or opt for an alias online such as for privacy or freedom like mentioned in “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community.” Nowadays, it is fairly easy to follow a person across different online communities. Not to mention that their identity online may affect their chances for a job.

Questions

• How does a person’s identity remain across different online communities?
• How many views does a thread get on average before expiring?
• Doesn’t using an email instead of a handle cause privacy issues?
• Why do people feed trolls?

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Summary:

Identity and Deception in the Virtual community:

The paper talks about identity and how it plays an important role in human social interactions, such as providing many basic cues about personality and the role we play in society or helping both parties understand and evaluate an interaction. The paper then goes on to express how on the internet identity is often ambiguous or absent entirely and how this can provide deception in social interactions. Furthermore the paper discusses the concept that the physical world confines a person to one body and therefore one identity but virtual communities do not confine you to one body and therefore a user can assume multiple identities. The paper goes on to philosophically inquire about the relationship between the self and the body for a bit before returning to more practical issues that a lack of proved identity creates. Some examples given were when a high school student pretends to be an expert on viruses or when a fake virologist gives information on new AIDS treatments to people who believe him while the new treatments actually have no backing.

 

4chan and /b: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community:

The paper states that researchers and practitioners often assume that data permanence and user identity are integral to a successful online social community, however 4chan remains successful without either. The paper researches how sites like 4chan can be successful while being anonymous and ephemeral and explores how users use 4chan and for what purpose. To o this they first decide to study just how anonymous and ephemeral 4chan is. The study for ephemerality finds that threads are only on the front page where they are most viewable for about 5 seconds, and the thread itself lasts for about 5 minutes on average. The study for anonymity find that over 90% of posts on 4chan are made by fully anonymous users. The paper then talks about the activity users partake in on 4chan and what percentage of all activity is taken by the following types: Themed, Sharing content, Question/advice, sharing personal information, discussion, request for item, request for action, meta and other.

 

 

Reflection:

Identity and Deception in the Virtual community:

The issue of identity and deception based on that identity is an already well-known issue as even in the real world and an individual needs to prove that they are who you say you are. For example, an individual needs a license to prove that you’re a qualified doctor, or a badge to prove they’re actually a police officer. Taking that issue to a virtual community only complicates it more as you can no longer even see if the person making the claim looks the part. Though identification should still be expected before accepting important information, such as in-depth medical advice. More interesting is the idea that one user can have multiple identities that they hop between. Unless the user is very obvious with their behavior it may be incredibly difficult to determine if you’re speaking with or reading a discussion between many people or just a few people.

 

4chan and /b: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community:

The idea that a social community can exist while virtually no member of the community know who any of the other members are in the slightest is interesting. Ephemerality as brought up in the paper is interesting as well, though I feel it is not nearly as important as the anonymity for studying 4chan and similar sites for why they work. After all when anonymity is in place ephemerality is redundant, there’s little difference when the information cannot be attributed to specific individuals either way. Furthermore due to the nature of the internet, not much is really ephemeral. Anyone who wishes to can take a picture of one of 4chan’s ephemeral threads and the picture will not disappear when the thread does. The types of activity the paper categorized for 4chan are also interesting, particularly for how anonymity may play into those activities. For example, “sharing personal information” may be more popular when there’s no identity for that information to be assigned to.

Questions:

• What is a good method to finding out if multiple accounts have the same creator?
• Who is this 4chan?
• What are the pros and cons of having anonymity or having identity?
• How important is anonymity for the types of activity the paper categorized for users of 4chan?
• How important is ephemerality to these types of activity?

 

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Summary

In the article “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community”, Judith Donath talks about how identity is crucial in how users communicate online and in the real world. By examining the Usenet environment, their study was able to determine how people were able to identify users through different means and how it still caused many issues. Issues that include things like trolling where users will make a fake account just to ruin a thread. There is also a chance of corrupt data and information being put out there because of people using deception. Now Usenet is able to use many things from the way people talk, their signatures, and their posts to track the user down and find their identity and see if they are a reliable source or not.

The article, “An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community”, talks about a discussion board called “’/b/” at 4chan.org. This page allows users to post threads without creating an identity. This brings up a discussion of what difference it makes when people put a label to a post identifying it with a person or as anonymous. This article explains how the anonymous posts on the 4chan page brought it so many diverse threads that leads to a cultural influence. Compared to other major sites like Facebook and Twitter, 4chan creates more of a cultural influence in memes and viral posts because so many diverse people can post things and be seen without the worry of having that thread pointed back at them. This also is affected by the constant change in popularity of threads that keep changing every couple of minutes. In the end this article concludes the influence anonymity can bring out the most from people and be shared with a large audience to create cultural changes and influences.

Reflection

After reading these two articles, I got a better understanding of the online world by looking at how identity plays a role in how people communicate online. I took away the fact that identity can be a good thing and a bad thing when posting on a social networking site. It can allow people to post things and gain diversity in ideas and lead to cultural influence; however, it can also bring people to post useless things that can even hurt the spread of meaningful data. I think if there is a good way of monitoring the anonymity of users, it can be beneficial to the sharing of ideas and continue moving our culture.

Questions

• If there are new ways people are hiding their identities online, what other precautions can we make to limit the number of fake identities?
• What other things can we look at besides voice, language, etc. to identify a user?
• What are the negative influences anonymity brings?
  • For example, the recent VT YikYak threat that put police on high alert.
• What makes people post more being anonymous than with an identity? Especially if their thread gets popular, they try to take credit for it afterwards.

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Matthew Bernas

Summary

The Identity and Deception article discusses the role of identity in online communities such as Usenet. Identity online is difficult to prove and information from an online persona determines the credibility of the post. Identity in an online community also serves as a position of power or presence. Some people find it fulfilling to solve other’s problems or providing insightful comments. The importance of credibility leaves opportunities open for people who want to fake credible identities intentionally. Some sources also might unintentionally come off as a credible source which can be mistaken by others. The article discusses that readers/viewers are receivers to signals that posters give off from their content. The poster’s credibility can be given away from these signals such as writing styles and signatures. The signals help us attach an image to the poster to match a certain category in our minds.

The 4Chan /b/ article discusses the roles of anonymity and ephemerality in their online community. The article conducted two experiments to determine the anonymity and ephemerality characteristics of the site and found the overwhelming use of the site is anonymous and posts last minutes. The article analyzes these characteristics and suggests that they play a role in the type of content it produces. The ephemerality of the site allows fresh content to stream through the site and anonymity promotes more free speech. Although this does not necessarily promote positive content, it does show the effects of anonymity and ephemerality on online communities.

Reflection

 The two articles both discuss the role of identity in online communities. Although outdated, the articles do bring up an important topic of online personas. People are able to interact with large online communities through a persona they create to represent themselves online. The ability to remain anonymous or fake an identity can affect the content posted online. It might promote speech that would otherwise had been limited by having their identities attached. Including an identity can also increase credibility but not necessarily reliability.

It was interesting to read the different motivations people have to participate in these online communities. Some people are seeking information, some gain from solving other’s problems, and others are browsing for entertainment. It is interesting to think about how people adapt to these new online mediums and form communities. The internet provides a whole new canvas for us to express ourselves and interact with others, and developments are fast paced resulting in interesting social constructs, ethical controversies, etc.

           

Questions

• How do you check the credibility of content?
• When is animosity appropriate?
• Is it acceptable for online personas to differ greatly from your real identity and personality?

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Bernstein, Michael S., Monroy-Hernandez, Andres. Harry, Drew. Andre, Paul. Panovich, Katrina. Vargas, Greg.  “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity
and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community”

Donath, Judith S. “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community.” Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community, smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html.

Summary

The study that is outlined in “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” illustrates differences in identity within online communities.  The researchers found that people identify themselves with account ID, and individual voice.  Most of the time people are truthful about who they are online, but there are some exceptions.  Trolls, impersonators, identity concealers, and catfish all lie about their identities on the internet.

The paper “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Emphemerality in a Large Online Community” discusses the often ambiguous and anonymous users of the website 4chan and how their culture shapes the whole of the internet.  The researchers studied data scraped from the “random” forum board on 4chan, one of its most popular pages, and found that since “random” is constantly being updated and old posts are constantly being deleted, that it cultivates a quickly changing community that is constantly experimenting with new ideas and memes.  Other sites such as twitter and facebook lack anonymity, which can lead to a different type of internet community with different social interactions.  They found that 90% of all posts in this forum were completely anonymous, leading to a unique culture that permeates throughout the internet.

Reflection

The first paper intrigued me mostly because I really love the MTV show “Catfish” which is an exploration into people’s online romances and how usually one person in the relationship is lying about their identity for one reason or another.  This is interesting in how it relates to the above study because it happens almost everywhere on the internet,  Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, etc. even though most of the users of these websites do not lie about who they are.

I was initially interested by the second paper because I barely knew anything about 4chan.  I knew that it has a lot of outside influence on internet culture in general, and now that I’ve read this research I know part of the reason why 4chan has so much influence on internet culture in general.

I would like to know how these findings would change if the research were to be up to date.  I know that 4chan had a lot of influence on the internet when this study took place, in 2010, but it could be different now that the internet landscape has changed in the past 7 years.  As for the other paper, I think the findings are still accurate in the current internet landscape.

Questions

• How has deception on the internet changed since this paper was written?
  • I know it is a lot harder to impersonate people on the internet nowadays
• Do other websites have some of the same characteristics of 4chan?
• How has anonymity changed since this paper was written?
• Has writing style and voice changed since these papers were written?
• Are there any websites that have consequences for lying about identity?
• What websites are easiest to fake an identity on? Which are hardest?

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Summary:

In the paper “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” the author, Judith S. Donath, addresses the points of how modern culture has come to establish identity and use the ambiguous nature of virtual communities to create a community where identity amongst the virtual world is deceiving. The author focuses around a study of the virtual community Usenet, where users can post about news and events they find to be relevant and worth discussing. This online community provides users with a username, signature, email link, and unique writing style that can help other users track and know who an individual users is. This creates a sense of community because the anonymousness of each user is slightly taken away. Now the author shows how that even in a community where users accounts mean something and throwing away an account is an action with consequences, there are still those who abuse the system and deceive other users. Trolling is a major issue, where trolls create fake accounts and use them to spread lies or just be annoyances to others for their own enjoyment. Other users go as far as they can to conceal their identities in the hopes that they can post controversial ideas or incite issues where none are just for fun. The main point was to show that even very open and identify communities can be breached and trolls can hurt the communities sense of security.

The second paper “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community” focuses much more heavily on the side of the virtual world that rejoices in the anonymousness that all the users can have. 4chan is a site created so that users can post ideas, topics, and pictures using the identity of “anonymous” if they so should please. This is exactly what most of the users choose to do with over 90% of all posts for the entire site being posted as anonymous. 4chan works under the system that posts, when posted, are pushed to the top of the first page of topics but can only remain there or even remain active if other users comment and add to the post. This creates a system where the most “popular” posts are kept alive and near the top of the topic thread. This system was made to allow people to freely express opinions and ideas without any fear of backlash and retaliation in the hopes that new ideas and conversations would arise. This has worked some but has also allowed users to post very horrible topics and pictures that do not help anyone or incite any useful conversations.

Reflection:

I found the two articles to be very insightful in showing that the virtual space that we all flock to so regularly can be a breading ground for deceit and nastiness if we let it be. Its good that certain communities are trying their best to give people an identifiable username and person because that way people feel less free to go off on a whim and do or say things that they wouldn’t do/say normally. After reading both of these articles and from my own experience I feel that anonymity can be a very important and useful tool for people and I in no way feel that there shouldn’t be a place where people can go to get that true anonymous experience. It can have benefits for people in areas that aren’t friendly to their beliefs or rights. But I also feel that there should be areas of the virtual space that impose upon its users a more strict user face so that people feel the same social pressure they feel when they speak using their own mouths. Anonymity can be a very useful tool and a way for people in need to escape and be safe but I feel that it also needs its checks and balances. Creating a virtual space where every sector is anonymous would not be good for the virtual community that we are all a part of.

Questions:

• Are there any effective ways of controlling trolling or identity concealing?
• How much anonymity is good for people/ when does it go too far?
• What do people who abuse anonymity hope to gain from their actions?
• Would linking user accounts from virtual communities to much larger social communities(i.e. Facebook) have a positive impact on those communities?
• Is it healthy for us as virtual citizens for places such as 4chan to exist and flourish?

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