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Anonymity, Pseudonymity, and Deliberation: Why Not Everything Should Be Connected
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Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity: Examining the social practices of r/Gonewild
A debate is currently raging regarding the value of anonymity online. On one side of the debate is Facebook, the world’s largest social network site. Facebook demands that people use their real names and is one of the leading forces behind the push towards a “real name” Internet. On the other side of the debate are scholars such as danah boyd and Bernie Hogan and sites such as 4chan and Reddit that view anonymity and pseudonymity as important to how people construct identity online. While much has been written about the benefits of anonymity and pseudonymity, there is a lack of published research examining specific practices enabled by pseudonyms. This paper provides a detailed account of the behaviors enabled through pseudonymous identity construction through a case study of the subreddit r/gonewild. The main contribution of the article is to provide a specific account of the costs of a totalizing embrace of the “real name” Internet.
Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity: Examining the social practices of r/Gonewild
A debate is currently raging regarding the value of anonymity online. On one side of the debate is Facebook, the world’s largest social network site. Facebook demands that people use their real names and is one of the leading forces behind the push towards a “real name” Internet. On the other side of the debate are scholars such as danah boyd and Bernie Hogan and sites such as 4chan and Reddit that view anonymity and pseudonymity as important to how people construct identity online. While much has been written about the benefits of anonymity and pseudonymity, there is a lack of published research examining specific practices enabled by pseudonyms. This paper provides a detailed account of the behaviors enabled through pseudonymous identity construction through a case study of the subreddit r/gonewild. The main contribution of the article is to provide a specific account of the costs of a totalizing embrace of the “real name” Internet.
The Right to Anonymity is Vital to Free Expression: Now and Always
“There are myriad reasons why individuals may wish to use a name other than the one they were born with. They may be concerned about threats to their lives or livelihoods, or they may risk political
Online anonymity: study found ‘stable pseudonyms’ created a more civil environment than real user names
A higher quality discussion emerged among commenters allowed to use personas instead of their real names.
Online anonymity: study found ‘stable pseudonyms’ created a more civil environment than real user names
A higher quality discussion emerged among commenters allowed to use personas instead of their real names.
Deliberation and Identity Rules: The Effect of Anonymity, Pseudonyms and Real-Name Requirements on the Cognitive Complexity of Online News Comments
How do identity rules influence online deliberation? We address this question by drawing on a data set of 45 million comments on news articles on the Huffington Post from January 2013 to May 2015. At the beginning of this period, the site allowed commenting under what we call non-durable pseudonyms. In December 2013, Huffington Post moved to regulate its forum by requiring users to authenticate their accounts. And in June 2014, Huffington Post outsourced commenting to Facebook altogether, approximating a ‘real-name’ environment. We find a significant increase in the cognitive complexity of comments (a proxy for one aspect of deliberative quality) during the middle phase, followed by a decrease following the shift to real-name commenting through Facebook. Our findings challenge the terms of the apparently simple trade-off between the goods and bads of anonymous and real-name environments and point to the potential value of durable pseudonymity in the context of online discussion.
Deliberation and Identity Rules: The Effect of Anonymity, Pseudonyms and Real-Name Requirements on the Cognitive Complexity of Online News Comments
How do identity rules influence online deliberation? We address this question by drawing on a data set of 45 million comments on news articles on the Huffington Post from January 2013 to May 2015. At the beginning of this period, the site allowed commenting under what we call non-durable pseudonyms. In December 2013, Huffington Post moved to regulate its forum by requiring users to authenticate their accounts. And in June 2014, Huffington Post outsourced commenting to Facebook altogether, approximating a ‘real-name’ environment. We find a significant increase in the cognitive complexity of comments (a proxy for one aspect of deliberative quality) during the middle phase, followed by a decrease following the shift to real-name commenting through Facebook. Our findings challenge the terms of the apparently simple trade-off between the goods and bads of anonymous and real-name environments and point to the potential value of durable pseudonymity in the context of online discussion.
Real-Name Policies: The War Against Pseudonymity
Real-name policies have existed for over a decade, but these problems have become exponentially harmful in today's world. It's time to fight back against this unsafe and discriminatory privacy-invasive practice.
Trolling democracy: anonymity doesn’t cause conflicts, bad site design does
‘Don’t feed the trolls’, people on social media are told. By forcing people to use their real names online, the managers of online forums hope to shame trolls into silence. But, J…
What’s in a name? A forward view of anonymity online
Demos is Britain’s leading cross-party think-tank. We produce original research, publish innovative thinkers and host thought-provoking events.
The web should remain anonymous by default | The Mozilla Blog
The unique architecture of the web enables a much higher degree of user privacy than exists on other platforms. Many factors contribute to this, but an ess
But anyway, papers since you asked: - DOI:10.1371 Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Online Firestorms in Social Media - Deliberation and Identity Rules: The Effect of Anonymity, Pseudonyms and Real-Name Requirements on the Cognitive Complexity of Online News Comments doi.org/10.1177/0032321719891385
Online anonymity/pseudonymity
“There's plenty of research in this topic area that shows hate speech doesn't decline when real-name policies are in effect, in fact usually the inverse, and the diversity of people contributing to conversations decreases” — bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5w4eqcxzw5jv5…
Research - Disqus
What’s in a name? A forward view of anonymity online
Anonymity and Online Commenting: The Broken Windows Effect and the End of Drive-by Commenting
Anonymity, Pseudonymity, and Deliberation: Why Not Everything Should Be Connected
Online anonymity: study found ‘stable pseudonyms’ created a more civil environment than real user names
Real-Name Policies: The War Against Pseudonymity
