- Judith S. Donath. “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community.”
- Michael S. Bernstein, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Drew Harry, Paul André, Katrina Panovich, Greg Vargas. “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community.”
The two papers revolve around Anonymity and Volatility as features of the design of a Social Media Platform. The first paper discusses the concepts of Anonymity and Deception in the virtual community of Usernet, while the second paper discusses the Ephemerality and Anonymity on the /b/ (random) board on 4chan.org.
Anonymity can be best explained as a transaction via cash (it cannot be traced back to you) while the use of usernames or identities is analogous to that of a credit card. Every time you use your identity (card), you contribute towards your reputation (credit history/score). Having said that, let’s consider the following ideas regarding Anonymity and Ephemerality:-
- Keeping in mind those analogies, one would rather be anonymous if they plan to be involved in shady/rowdy/morally or politically incorrect dealings (like the ones widely prevalent on 4chan.org/b/)
- Further, since the anonymity does not contribute to the user reputation, no user, willing to build a reputation will stay/migrate to a platform that makes them anonymous by default. Yes, Agreed that users of any such platforms soon devise ways to distinguish a regular user from a ‘newbie’ but that is still not enough motivation for anyone to ‘spend’ their time and efforts on the platform asking and answering questions without getting rewarded appropriately.
- Thus, with no repercussions whatsoever, an anonymous platform is bound to be reputed for generation of memes and growing wild.
- Even if a posted question gets answered, there is no way to validate/moderate the answer and identify a samaritan from the trolls because there is no way to regulate such platforms. Therefore any content one sees there, is better taken with a pinch of salt.
- The studies, pave the way for more discourse on the grey area around Freedom of Speech. It definitely is best achieved with anonymity, but would we be comfortable with a platform which allows anonymous conversations on terrorism and/or gun laws? This is an entirely separate avenue. One may also take into consideration, Confession Pages on Facebook wherein the identity maybe recorded but not replayed back.
- Ironically, the best use of anonymity can be done when personal details are involved. Anonymous posting sites can be used to discuss personal issues or coping mechanisms without the fear of being judged.
- Speaking of being judged, another strong merit of the anonymous scenario is the complete lack of user details, thereby making it impossible for inhibitions and discriminations to creep into interactions on the website.
- However, in a pseudonymous or open identity setting, the reputation/karma of users may not only increase but also diminish, thereby validating and regulating the users, making the task of deception detection slightly easier.
- An anonymous platform could promote content quality, but with the concept of ephemerality being involved, an extra effort to bump or sage the post would not be advocated. No point in having an anonymous Reddit with ‘volatile and timed upvotes.
- This is where a volatile system would prove beneficial. Not only that, a non-volatile system may also allow the editing of posts and storing the edit history later, making a better information-rich system.
- Further, users might miss certain posts if they are not online owing to the ephemerality. The system of having to bump posts up, even when they are inevitably going to die after the bump threshold is reached is similar to the echo chambers on Twitter. The difference being, that Twitter data can be scraped. It may be exciting to consider solutions to pseudo ephemerality caused by a high post rate.
- Ephemeral posts can be recorded or saved and replayed infinitely or even reposted at will.
- Another aspect to think about is that, with tech giants incrementing their storage facilities, ephemerality would go relatively easy on storage servers, even while providing scalability.
- Last, but not the least, a major aspect of ephemeral posts, is that the data can not be used for advertising and pattern identification as prevalent with the recent trends.
Thus, the design concepts, Ephemerality and Anonymity can be used to design social media platforms as per their merits and demerits. Instagram and Snapchat, ephemeral yet allowing saved posts can be considered hybrid systems. On a wider domain and not just images, a hybrid system allowing the best of both worlds may also be designed which would be thought provoking.