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Post by londonpostie on Oct 18, 2021 13:22:09 GMT
Current experiences of a local restaurant who dared express an opinion of low traffic neighbourhoods - as if the police don't have better things to do. Imagine this for dozens of pupils at the school down the road, and then the school also down the road, and then the staff at the local GP practice and it goes on and on and on and on, every day. And they all need police time or NHS/council services. Maybe .. maybe, it's just better to not express an opinion:
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Post by kathryn on Oct 18, 2021 13:55:07 GMT
For example, in real life if I were to snap out a rude comment to a sales assistant, or voice a controversial opinion at a dinner party just to get attention (neither very admirable actions), there would generally be some stronger social accountability/consequences in real life than I would have got anonymously online. I would have to look the other person/people involved in the eye while behaving in that way, and others in the vicinity would likely see the interaction and show their own disapproval. Unlike an anonymous interaction on the internet, I couldn't just abruptly exit if I wanted to get away from the awkwardness, either - or not without looking like an idiot. . Also, we know that there are people who are perfectly happy attaching their real names to such actions - in fact, they thrive by doing so. You cannot shame the shameless - the Donald Trumps, Piers Morgans, etc of this world. One of the reasons for their success and popularity is the sense that they say the things others think but dare not voice. I can’t help but think creating an environment in which the shameless will carry on thriving, and those who do feel social shame will be too intimidated to speak up, is probably not going to be great for society. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2021 14:57:59 GMT
A large part of the problem is that many people treat the Internet as being not real, as if what they do doesn't really matter, and I don't see any way to fix that without a lot of high profile enforcement.
In the UK it's already illegal to abuse or harass people on social media. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 makes it an offence to repeatedly behave in a way that a reasonable person would consider was intended to cause distress and there's absolutely nothing in that law to say "unless you're doing it on the 'net in which case we're cool with it". The problem is that even though it carries a sentence of up to five years imprisonment hardly anyone treats it as a crime, and unfortunately that hardly anyone doesn't include the police. That needs to change. As far as the effect on the victim is concerned there's no significant difference between disturbing messages on a forum and disturbing messages in a letter and the legislation reflects that, but it needs to be the same as far as enforcement is concerned too. |
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Post by mkb on Oct 18, 2021 18:04:25 GMT
Persistent harassment, online or off, is a crime. Bring unnecessarily hurtful is not.
The deterrent to the latter used to be the reproach and reputational damage from your peers. That's not possible with anonymity.
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Post by kathryn on Oct 19, 2021 20:09:07 GMT
That’s not quite true. We’ve had anonymous posters here who faced social consequences for their behaviour.
It’s not possible to impose social consequence when anonymity is combined with transience - when the anonymous account is not persistent, or when the form of interaction is so fleeting that no meaningful social relationship exists to impose social consequences.
The TL:DR is that Twitter is the perfect design for trolling.
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Post by Dr Tom on Oct 20, 2021 17:38:59 GMT
Probably not under my current account. I might set up a new account with my real name and post using that, but I would likely be less active. But this is mostly because people search for me under my real name and I'm careful to monitor what gets shown (not because there is anything bad in either case).
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Post by lichtie on Oct 20, 2021 21:07:56 GMT
For me the main thing is to have plausible deniability if my employer decides they don't like something I post (they have a wide range of things which they declare to be absolutely private which are nothing to do with commercially sensitive information or privacy issues which I've been known to let forth about online without explicitly identifying them). That's not really an issue here (as they are highly unlikely to be looking) but I use the same alias on multiple sites, including the Grauniad. Though anyone who looked deep enough into my posts there could probably actually backtrack to work out who I was (as I have an obvious if low key web presence, and have had for over 20 years). So I would probably post here under my real name since there's no real downsides, but some other places I think less likely. For the same reason, places where I do use my real name (FB, LinkedIn), I restrict as much as allowed who can see my posts, and limit myself to uncontroversial comments.
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Post by hairspray57 on Oct 21, 2021 23:57:53 GMT
Also what would the many people who use a different name professionally to their legal name do on Twitter? Would they be allowed to continue it or would we suddenly see loads of accounts change to unfamiliar names.
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Post by jojo on Oct 28, 2021 16:55:42 GMT
For example, in real life if I were to snap out a rude comment to a sales assistant, or voice a controversial opinion at a dinner party just to get attention (neither very admirable actions), there would generally be some stronger social accountability/consequences in real life than I would have got anonymously online. I would have to look the other person/people involved in the eye while behaving in that way, and others in the vicinity would likely see the interaction and show their own disapproval. Unlike an anonymous interaction on the internet, I couldn't just abruptly exit if I wanted to get away from the awkwardness, either - or not without looking like an idiot. . Also, we know that there are people who are perfectly happy attaching their real names to such actions - in fact, they thrive by doing so. You cannot shame the shameless - the Donald Trumps, Piers Morgans, etc of this world. One of the reasons for their success and popularity is the sense that they say the things others think but dare not voice. I can’t help but think creating an environment in which the shameless will carry on thriving, and those who do feel social shame will be too intimidated to speak up, is probably not going to be great for society. Absolutely. Some of the worst abuse and bullying comes from people who have their names attached. There will be some exceptions, but the people lacking the self-awareness or empathy to be thoughtful online are the ones who are proud of their bad behaviour. Message boards were becoming a think when I was a student, and all advice at that time was to never use your real name for your own safety and IMO that point stands. As it is, I am deliberately vague about any personal stories, sometimes changing bits of stories 'just in case' someone might recognise me. Nothing dramatic, but if I mention something about my 'brother's' profession, I might change it to my sister/cousin/friend. That's probably over-doing it, but old habits die hard. On Facebook and Twitter where I do use my real name, my accounts are on maximum privacy settings, and I almost never given an opinion on anything. My public employer strongly suggested we don't mention where we work on social media in case someone tries to hold something we say on there against us, and reminded us that if we do mention their name, then anything bad we say or do could count as bringing them into disrepute. I'm not worried about that myself, but there will be employers who will seek out social media to find something to object to if they want rid of an employee. You definitely don't want to be in a situation where you have to explain why you were online during work hours! In other words, I favour privacy and think an IT illiterate government, who think nothing of saying offensive stuff under their own names, are grasping at diversionary straws whenever they suggest this sort of thing. |
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Post by sfsusan on Oct 28, 2021 22:52:23 GMT
I wouldn't mind if I had to somehow show ID before getting an account, but then could keep an anonymous posting ID, as long as there were strict privacy/data protection rules that meant my info was carefully protected I agree. I'd be happy to have the site admins vet my identity, but I'd want to post under my chosen nom de board. (I used to work for an airline that would let res center workers give customers an alias, but it had to be registered with the company first. So if a customer said "I talked to Suzie in the Omaha Res Center", the company could trace exactly who they spoke with, even if it was Samantha in Chicago.) |
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Post by Samwise on Oct 30, 2021 0:16:28 GMT
I have been on the receiving end of real-world abuse because of posting under my real name. Ever since then, I'm anonymous online wherever possible. The reason I want to keep online anonymity isn't so I can have carte blanche to say nasty things to people, it's to protect myself from ill-intentioned people finding out who I am and targeting me because they didn't like a tweet or a comment or a forum post somewhere.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2021 5:07:04 GMT
I have been on the receiving end of real-world abuse because of posting under my real name. Same here.
I really don't understand the reasoning that claims that if people have to be known by their real names then that will stop them being abusive. It never seems to deter people from being arseholes in every day life. Why should it be different online?
I suspect what usually deters people from being abusive is the possibility that they might end up with a thoroughly deserved punch in the face. It's the remoteness that's the problem with online abuse, not the superficial anonymity.
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