Final Paper Rough Draft

Throughout the years technological innovations have brought to us many great things. One of the most important and widely used today is the Internet. It allows us to look for anything by typing into a search engine and getting millions of results under a minute, communicate with others anywhere in the world, get the latest news, along with many other great things. Although there are all of these good things that have come along due to the Internet there are also bad things. With the help of the Internet people known as “trolls” have found that attacking others through a computer screen is very easy. About tech defines the word troll as “[a person who] actively goes out of their way to cause trouble on the Internet” (about.com). These trolls have been perpetrators to many online bullying incidents which in some cases lead to the victim committing suicide. In a lot of these cases those trolls were using websites which allow anonymity so that the victim would not know who they really are. Like in the case of Rebecca Sedwick a twelve year old girl who on September 9, 2013 committed suicide by jumping from a tower after being cyberbullied through anonymous websites such as Ask.fm along with Instagram and Kik Messenger (abcnews.com, theledger.com). This is only one of many other similar cases in which people are attacked and threatened through the use of the Internet. Which brings into question whether anonymity on social media websites and platforms should be allowed or not. This paper will take a look at the problems that many people believe anonymity enabled websites and cyber bullying can bring on to people who are common users of the Internet and their websites. In order to do this I will be looking at three texts. The first text I will be taking a look at is “How the Internet created an age of rage” an article posted on The Guardian by Tim Adams who is a staff writer for the Observer. In his text Adams talks more about the problems with anonymity but also hints at some benefits it could have. The second text I will be looking at is “Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt” by Julie Zhuo who is a product design manager at Facebook. In her text she talks about the origins of anonymity and morality, and how these apply now with the existence of the Internet. Finally the last text I will be examine is an excerpt from Smarter Thank You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds or the Better a book written by Clive Thompson who is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science and technology writer. In this text Thompson gives examples on situations where anonymity has not proven to be a problem but rather a positive environment for people to exchange comments. By analyzing these three texts I will take a look at what these authors believe is causing online bullying, what solutions they believe can work to solve this issue, and finally I will be providing my own input on what I think about the issue of anonymity and what I believe should be done about it. 

Tim Adams text starts off by introducing a comedian by the name of Stewart Lee. Lee decided that he would collect comments made about him over the course of six months by going on Google for about ten minutes most days of the week. He collected over dozens of comments that said rude things about him, at first he was worried by these comments but after according to Lee himself, “You can see a lot of them seem to be the same people posting the same stuff under different names in different places,…,abusing you under barely effective pseudonyms” (Adams). Lee is not the only one who receives this type of hate victims include celebrities along with many other people especially politicians. The problem with these commenters is that a lot of them tend to be anonymous. Psychologist have came up with a term called “deindividuation”, which “happens when social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed” (Adams). These people who are commenting through their computers have the courage to say all of those things because they know no one will ever know it was actually them. This happens in many cases such as when one is in a car and you feel like you can scream anything to another driver whose driving skills you do not like. Trolls live to cause outrage and they want to be held credible for it so they aspire for people to recognize their work or style of trolling and since they are anonymous it is risk-free. Some of these trolls become so popular that they catch the eye of the people whose work is being commented on. Adams introduces Jeffrey Wells in his text, he is “author of Hollywood Elsewhere, is a former columnist on the LA Times who has been blogging inside stories about movies for 15 years” (Adams).On his blog, Wells had seen various comments by a character going under the name of LexG and dressed him directly. They met up once and Wells asked him to write a column, but LexG refused. Wells does not want to get rid of anonymity on his blog because he believes that the comments section on his page would dry up and thinks that “anonymity makes for livelier writing” (Adams). Adams goes on to talk about a woman by the name of Sarah Bee who decided to take matters in her own hands and began to moderate comments herself by confronting those who wrote rude things. Taking the same route as Bee is Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia. Wales has people working around the clock to moderate the pages posted so that no trolls are able to ruin information which can actually be useful. Others who oppose the ban of anonymity take a political approach to it, that it conflicts with the freedom of speech along with many other things. Overall Adams believes that people should have to put their names on everything that they post online, and to those who do not that they should not be listened to.

Julie Zhuo starts her text off by providing a definition for trolling which is “the act of posting inflammatory, derogatory or provocative messages in public forums” (Zhuo). Trolling has been a problem since the Internet came into existence but its roots go way back. Plato talked about anonymity in the 4th century B.C., in his parable of the ring of Gyges. This ring gave is owner the power of invisibility and Plato noticed that even the most truthful man would become a thief because they knew they would not be caught. Zhuo goes on to give an example of a girl by the name of Alexis Pilkington, a 17 year old girl who committed suicide, trolls descended on her tribute page and posted tons of hateful comments and pictures of nooses. Another example is that of Nicole Catsouras, an 18 year old, who died in a car crash. Pictures of her disfigured body were posted on the Internet and were also sent to her family. A lot of psychological research has been done and over and over again they have proven that anonymity causes people to promote unethical behavior. Many people are already trying to find ways to combat these trolls, some of them shut down their commenting systems and others turn to the law. Unfortunately the law can not do a lot to deactivate them but the content providers should be the ones who should not allow or discourage anonymity. Reuters, a news agency, recently decided that they would block those people who commented anonymously. Many people argue that the abolishment of anonymity goes against their rights established in the Untied States Constitution but before the Internet anonymity was very rare. Those who said something were held accountable for it because every one would know who said it. Raising barriers to prevent those bad comments from being posted is a the very firs step to completely eradicate anonymity and that is where this process should start. Zhou gives some examples of content providers who are trying to combat these trolls such as Gizmodo who is “trying an audition system for new commenters, under which their first few comments would be approved by a moderator or a trusted commenter to ensure quality before anybody else could see them. After a successful audition, commenters can freely post” (Zhuo). Along with Disqus who “has experimented with allowing users to rate one another’s comments and feed those ratings into a global reputation system called Clout. Moderators can use a commenter’s Clout score to “help separate top commenters from trolls”” (Zhuo). These content providers need to stop allowing for people to post anonymously and to moderate their comments. This will begin to lift “the veil of anonymity” and we will be able to see those trolls for who they really are, and that is human, just like everyone else. 

Clive Thompson’s excerpt he begins by talking about how the people who the abuse is typically directed at is at women especially if they talk about politics or anything controversial and it is also directed to minorities in the United States. It is hardly every directed at white men. We cannot completely get rid of this abuse because it has always been present, the Internet just made it easier but there are techniques to reduce online abuse. People are already finding ways in learning not only how to manage online conversations but how to improve them also. Thompson gives the example of a man by the name of Ta-Nahesi Coates, a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly. Coates used to run a personal blog for many years until he moved it to the Atlantic, he posts about many subjects such as race, TV shows, sports, politics, movies, etc. Surprisingly enough the comments on his forum are abuse-free. Coates achieved this by noticing back when he was not a blogger that people would comment terrible things on his favorite blogs so he decided he would change it. When he started his own blog he would go out of his way to encourage those who had something good to say to continue posting and those who would post abusive things would get their comments deleted and if they continued they would get banned. Coates still has arguments with people who challenge him but it is done in a civil manner without any abuse. People need to be the ones who have to take action first if they want to see change in the way people engage online. The problem with cites, such as YouTube, whose comments section are a cesspool is that there is no one there to moderate them. Coates has found that a conversation works better when it is smaller, which is also a huge problem for moderating sites such as YouTube or newspapers because they are always trying to get bigger. All in all everyone should learn and be taught how to behave online. Every one must know that when it comes to the Internet there is always going to be good things about it and a lot of bad, which we have to learn to accept.

How I Will Use the Texts

http://www.silive.com/relationships/index.ssf/2013/03/online_anonymity_shields_bad_behavior_and_positive_work.html
This text talks about why anonymity is bad and why it can not be completely unavailable. I will use this text to talk about why is bad and why banning anonymity cannot be completely achievable.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/internet_troll_personality_study_machiavellianism_narcissism_psychopathy.html
This text shows examples on why anonymity should not be allowed and I will use this text to support my claims with actual evidence.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2625309/identity-management/the-internet-should-not-be-anonymous.html
This text talks about why allowing anonymity can cause total disorder because there is no one to regulate the trolls. I will use this text to pose some solutions that can help avoid total anonymity.

Three Texts for Fourth Paper

I found this text by using Google, it was on the first page when I typed "anonymity why it's bad".
http://www.silive.com/relationships/index.ssf/2013/03/online_anonymity_shields_bad_behavior_and_positive_work.html

I found this text by using Google, it was on the first page when I typed "why is anonymity bad".
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/internet_troll_personality_study_machiavellianism_narcissism_psychopathy.html

I found this text by using Google, it was on the first page when I typed "why is online anonymity bad".
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2625309/identity-management/the-internet-should-not-be-anonymous.html

Anonymity Essay

As technology has developed more and more over the years we have seen many great things come about such as smart phones, portable laptops, along with many other things. But these advancements in technology have not always brought on good things. Many websites that are available for public use on the world wide web have been home to many bullying incidents, and have become more and more common over the years. The ability for the so called ‘trolls’ to hide behind a computer knowing that their identity is hidden due to anonymity has allowed for them to make even more attacks very easily. In a lot cases those who are being cyber bullied have went to drastic measures to end those attacks by committing suicide, this has become such a problem that even our current President Barack Obama has addressed the issue (2010). This paper will take a look at the problems that many people believe anonymity enabled websites and cyber bullying can bring on to people who are common users of the Internet and their websites. I will be taking a look at three texts one of them being “How the Internet created an age of rage” an article posted on The Guardian by Tim Adams who is a staff writer for the Observer. In Adam’s text he shows what is pushes the anonymous commenters to do what they are doing and why it can be beneficial for there to be anonymity or not beneficial. Another text I will be looking at is “Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt” by Julie Zhuo who is a product design manager at Facebook. Zhuo’s text takes a whole look at both sides of the argument to see what can be done about anonymity. The last text I will look at is an excerpt from Smarter Thank You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds or the Better a book written by Clive Thompson who is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science and technology writer. In Thompson’s text he gives examples of situations where anonymity is allowed but there is nothing put positive comments and feedback.  By analyzing these three texts I will look at what many writers believe is causing online bullying and what can be done to change it to see if their solutions to these problems seem effective. 

Many of the attacks that happen on the Internet are done by those who use websites that allow anonymity or those who use pseudonyms. A lot of people believe that if websites did not allow for users of their websites to chose to be anonymous or have the ability to go under a different name that they would not say the mean things that they do. It is obvious that no one is safe from these types of attacks from the common person to entertainers and especially politicians. Psychologist came up with the terms deindividuation which happens when “social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed” (Adams). In other words that means that people are more prone to do or say bad things when they know no one else will now who said or did such things. An experiment was done with trick-or-treaters who were invited into a house to take sweets and right next to it there was also a large sum of money “When children arrived singly, and not wearing masks, only 8% of them stole any of the money. When they were in larger groups, with their identities concealed by fancy dress, that number rose to 80%” (Adams). This experiment shows the same thing that happens in a online social media situation because people know that their identities are concealed and they are in large groups they encourage one another attack people. On the other hand a man by the name of Jeffrey Wells, who Adams introduces in his text, is the author of  author of Hollywood Elsewhere,  a former columnist on the LA Times, and a blogger believes that “anonymity makes for livelier writing” (Adams). Wells has had many encounters with a man who uses the name LexG, a man who constantly comments on Wells’ work, Wells believes that LexG is a great writer and does not agree with others to enforce a “real name” policy. Adams writes, “He [Wells] has resisted insisting that people write under their own name because that would kill the comments instantly”. Overall in Adams text he shows why anonymity can be a bad thing but also uses Wells as an example on why anonymity should be allowed because it promotes people to comment freely on things whether it be positive or negative feedback.

Trolling has become easier due to the Internet but it has roots that go all the way back to the fourth century B.C. when Plato was alive (Zhuo). In a parable written by Plato he touched upon the subject of anonymity and morality. He talks about a ring called the ring of Gyges this ring when gave its owner the ability to become invisible and Plato noticed that even most honorable man would become a thief because they knew they would not be caught (Zhuo). This same concept applies to those who use the Internet Zhuo calls is the “online disinhibition effect” which basically means that when a person is online they tend to act our more frequently than they would in a face-to-face situation. Zhuo writes, “Many victims are turning to legislation. All 50 states now have stalking, bullying or harassment laws that explicitly include electronic forms of communication…Last month,…,Carla Franklin, persuaded a judge to force YouTube to reveal the identity of a troll who made a disparaging comment about her on the video-sharing site”. The law itself cannot protect these people all on their own Zhuo believes that the websites and content providers should help out the law by discouraging or disallowing anonymity on their websites. Although many people might argue that anonymity cannot be completely eradicated because people will always find a way to get around the rules, making it harder for them to do so is a start. Many websites are already beginning to take action in learning how to make their comments a well regulated place for people to exchange ideas and opinions such as Gizmodo. In Gizmodo the commenters have to go through sort of an audition to see that they are posting quality comments and once they are trusted then they can post freely. As a whole Zhou believes that the content providers should stop allowing anonymity and train their users to report trolls and that the websites should moderate their comments sections.

The types of threats that arise can range from just a plain disagreement statement to rape threats, when the person being attacked is a woman. According to Thompson, “…abuse isn’t evenly distributed. It’s much less often directed at men, particularly white men like me. In contrast, many women I know—probably most—find that being public online inevitably attracts a wave of comments”. When women along with minorities or any subordinated group have opinions on topics which are controversial, politics, or even something intellectual they are most likely to be attacked online. Although many people blame the Internet for creating these types of prejudices they did not, they only created a new stage for them according to Thompson. A good example on how the Internet can once again become a good place where people can receive and give positive or constructive feedback is that of Ta-Nahesi Coates. He is a “…senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine of politics and culture…” (Thompson 78). Coates was a blogger himself before moving it over to the Atlantic and noticed large amounts of terrible comments left on the pages of his favorite political bloggers. He noticed that when a lot of people would post negative things that they would “…poison the atmosphere, chasing off productive posters” (Thompson 78). So Coates decided that his blog would be different, that those who had an opinions that were written in an intelligent manner and not meant to hurt anyone would actually be allowed to stay. According to Thompson, “The instant he [Coates] saw something abusive, he’d delete it, banning repeating offenders… he went out of his way to encourage the smart folks, responding to them personally and publicly, so they’d be encouraged to stay and talk” (78). What Coates did was a very smart thing because it forced out those “trolls” and welcomed the intellectuals. Many social media websites should look at what Coates did and learn to moderate their sites comment section so that it will not be such a cesspool.

As a whole these three authors made great claims on the subject of anonymity. All three of them acknowledged it as something that can have negative effects when directed towards others. Adam’s text gave and example on how anonymity pushes large groups of people to attack others but he also wrote about a man (Wells) who sees anonymity as a good thing. Zhuo’s text showed us how far back the negative effects of anonymity come from and what can be done to fix all of the problems that come out of it. Thompson’s text talks about the people who tend to be attacked the most by anonymous posters and showed a great example on how one man was able to moderate his website to be a place full of positivity while still allowing people to be anonymous. I think that these text’s were all very strong because they all gave a sufficient amount of examples to support their claims and the fully explained their position. After reading all of them I think that I was most persuaded by Thompson’s text because I believe that they only way for these problems to be avoided is if websites or content providers themselves do a good job at eliminating the trolls and allowing for those who post quality feedback to stay.

Works Cited

Adams, Tim. "How the Internet Created an Age of Rage." The Guardian. The Guardian, 23 July 2011. Web. 6 Apr. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jul/24/internet-anonymity-trolling-tim-adams>.

Thompson, Clive. Smarter than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better. N.p.: Penguin, 2013. 77-81. Print.

Zhuo, Julie. "Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30zhuo.html>.

Anonimity Essay Rough Draft

As technology has developed more and more over the years we have seen many great things come about such as smart phones, portable laptops, along with many other things. But these advancements in technology have not always brought on good things. Many websites that are available for public use on the world wide web have been home to many bullying incidents, and have become more and more common over the years. The ability for the so called ‘trolls’ to hide behind a computer knowing that their identity is hidden due to anonymity has allowed for them to make even more attacks very easily. In a lot cases those who are being cyber bullied have went to drastic measures to end those attacks by committing suicide, this has become such a problem that even our current president Barack Obama has addressed the issue. This paper will take a look at the problems that many people believe anonymity enabled websites and cyber bullying can bring on to people who are common users of the Internet and their websites. I will be taking a look at three texts one of them being ““Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power” by Danah Boyd who is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, a Research Assistant Professor in Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, and a Fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Another text I will be looking at is “How the Internet created an age of rage” an article posted on The Guardian by Tim Adams who is a staff writer for the Observer. The last text I will look at is an excerpt from Smarter Thank You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds or the Better a book written by Clive Thompson who is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science and technology writer. By analyzing these three texts I will look at what many writers believe is causing online bullying and what can be done to change it to see if their solutions to these problems seem effective. 

Many of the attacks that happen on the Internet are done by those who use websites that allow anonymity or those who use pseudonyms. A lot of people believe that if websites did not allow for users of their websites to chose to be anonymous or have the ability to go under a different name that they would not say the mean things that they do. It is obvious that no one is safe from these types of attacks from the common person to entertainers and especially politicians. Psychologist came up with the terms deindividuation which happens when “social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed” (Adams). In other words that means that people are more prone to do or say bad things when they know no one else will now who said or did such things. An experiment was done with trick-or-treaters who were invited into a house to take sweets and right next to it there was also a large sum of money “When children arrived singly, and not wearing masks, only 8% of them stole any of the money. When they were in larger groups, with their identities concealed by fancy dress, that number rose to 80%” (Adams). This experiment shows the same thing that happens in a online social media situation because people know that their identities are concealed and they are in large groups they encourage one another attack people. On the other hand a man by the name of Jeffrey Wells who is the author of  author of Hollywood Elsewhere,  a former columnist on the LA Times, and a blogger believes that “anonymity makes for livelier writing” (Adams). Wells has had many encounters with a man who uses the name LexG, a man who constantly comments on Wells’ work, Wells believes that LexG is a great writer and does not agree with others to enforce a “real name” policy. Adams writes, “He [Wells] has resisted insisting that people write under their own name because that would kill the comments instantly”. If everyone, according to Wells, was forced to use their real names on all social media websites it would ruin the feedback that they get whether it be positive or negative. 

A website that attempted to fix the problem was Google. Google listened to the peoples pleas to enforce a “real name” policy which basically means that people who do not sign up with a real name will not be allowed continued access to their website or their profiles will be deleted. Googles attempt at trying to enforce this “real name” policy got many people fired up so they decided, then, to change their policy to allow pseudonyms just not nicknames and no longer suspending any of the accounts who did not follow the rules. Those who are for the “real name” policy constantly use Facebook as an example but what they do not know is that many Facebook users do not use their real names. According to Boyd, 

“…countless black and Latino youth signed up to Facebook using handles.…Likewise, people from outside of the US started signing up to Facebook and using alternate names. Again, no one noticed because names transliterated from Arabic or Malaysian or containing phrases in Portuguese weren’t particularly visible to the real name enforcers. Real names are by no means universal on Facebook, but it’s the importance of real names is a myth that Facebook likes to shill out. And, for the most part, privileged white Americans use their real name on Facebook. So it “looks” right.”

What many people fail to notice is that the people who chose to sign up under pseudonyms do so because they want their names to “look” right while white people do not need to because their names already “fill” that requirement. Many times these people do this to protect themselves because “many people are far LESS safe when they are identifiable” (Boyd). Interestingly enough those who spoke up against the “real name” policy are privileged white folks who are the ones who least likely to be affected by the policy, but they are actually being listened to because they have much more power than minorities. Overall attempting to force social media users to use their real names has proven ineffective because many people are safer going under different names.

The types of threats that arise can range from just a plain disagreement statement to rape threats, when the person being attacked is a woman. According to Thompson, “…abuse isn’t evenly distributed. It’s much less often directed at men, particularly white men like me. In contrast, many women I know—probably most—find that being public online inevitably attracts a wave of comments”. When women along with minorities or any subordinated group have opinions on topics which are controversial, politics, or even something intellectual they are most likely to be attacked online. Although many people blame the Internet for creating these types of prejudices they did not, they only created a new stage for them according to Thompson. A good example on how the Internet can once again become a good place where people can receive and give positive or constructive feedback is that of Ta-Nahesi Coates. He is a “…senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine of politics and culture…” (Thompson 78). Coates was a blogger himself before moving it over to the Atlantic and noticed large amounts of terrible comments left on the pages of his favorite political bloggers. He noticed that when a lot of people would post negative things that they would “…poison the atmosphere, chasing off productive posters” (Thompson 78). So Coates decided that his blog would be different, that those who had an opinions that were written in an intelligent manner and not meant to hurt anyone would actually be allowed to stay. According to Thompson, “The instant he [Coates] saw something abusive, he’d delete it, banning repeating offenders… he went out of his way to encourage the smart folks, responding to them personally and publicly, so they’d be encouraged to stay and talk” (78). What Coates did was a very smart thing because it forced out those “trolls” and welcomed the intellectuals. Many social media websites should look at what Coates did and learn to moderate their sites comment section so that it will not be such a cesspool.

Unit 3 Questions pt 2

1. Summarize the main solutions presented

Some of the solutions these writers pose are that people themselves should learn not to say mean things to people over the internet and that websites should have stricter rules on what users can and cannot post and what they can and cannot say.

2. Describe a few that seem promising

I think a very promising solution to this problem is to have websites pose stricter rules on what they can and cannot post because the solution of trying to teach people themselves to not say bad things about others would never work because there’s always going to be people who say bad things about others even if they are told not to.

3. State why you think they could work, or present your own solutions

I think that is the best solution because although it will take a lot of work for the websites themselves to change the policies that are written up it is I believe the only way for this type of hate to stop affecting people. Or people should learn that whatever someone behind a computer screen says about them should not affect them because after all most people that say those types of things would never dare to say those things to them personally.

Unit 3 Questions

1. What are some of the main differences in the way these texts define the problem?

Some of these texts like “Who Are These Haters That Poison the Well of Our Discourse” by Andrew Stafford define the problem of trolling on the Internet as something really bad that can be prevented with time, money, and human resources. All in all most of these texts define and acknowledge that because users are allowed to stay anonymous that it is a huge problem and a really bad thing because people once someone is anonymous you cannot do anything to defend your self against them because there will most likely be more than one person attacking you.

2. What are some of the main differences in their claims about what causes the problem?

Some texts say that because users of the internet now have the the ability to remain anonymous that it drive these ‘bullies’ to post these mean things online because they know that no one will ever know who said that. Others blame the internet at as a whole and others blame the social medias that allow for ‘trolls’ to post derogatory things on these websites. 

3. What are some of the main differences in their claims about what should be done to solve the problem?

In the text “Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power by Danah Boyd claim that the social medias play a huge role in providing some safety for their users. She believes that they should do something to prevent users from receiving hate. In the text “Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt.” by Julie Zhuo she states that they law should do something to “disrarm these Internet trolls” but if they cannot do anything about it then the content providers and social networking problems should change their websites so that anonymity is not allowed on their platforms.