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?
