Introduction
Anonymity online is an issue which, as the internet develops, garners more and more attention. Through the advancement of technology, the ability to hide one’s identity behind a digital mask is one that only becomes more necessary and beneficial. In a world now so dominated by digital spaces, should every action taken online be directly traced back, able to be seen and analysed by all employers, internet service providers and data farming companies?
As a society also concerned with freedom, it would seem imperative that our privacy remains protected at all costs. Online anonymity, however, is not the libertarian dream we might idealise it to be. Websites such as 4Chan or individual online users can often use the extent of internet privacy to commit devious acts (such as online harassment) with little repercussions. The shield of anonymity and the growing reliance on internet culture in tandem together make it easy to ruin someone’s reputation, or life, all whilst behind this digital mask that makes it impossible for accountability to be upheld. Despite this, anonymity is still vitally important in the separation of the internet from the material world and whilst the extent to which may be up for debate, the concept of anonymity is one highly valued.
Online privacy is an issue which people are also becoming increasingly aware of, particularly generationally. As the internet has developed, the scope to which privacy is breached has only increased, with companies able to make inferences using one’s browsing habits and likes. Not only this, but they of course still hold the personal information tied to one’s account, such as passwords, emails and other proof of identity measures. What of when these companies suffer hacks? The fact that a malicious individual holds one’s personal data, passwords and access to their accounts, is a chilling one undoubtedly. This information is often used in cybercrime or online harassment and thus it is surely vital that we as a society protect our online privacy.
Anonymity Online
The aforementioned 4Chan is the purest form of anonymity on the internet, with 0 barriers to entry such a registration process. Users can post anonymously with no archive and posts are buried within minutes. Creator Christopher ‘Moot’ Poole defends this, saying that the way that 4Chan is structured allows for “authenticity”, for people to truly be themselves without any kind of social barrier preventing people from speaking their minds, expressing their true interests.
Christopher also speaks about how the anonymity allows people to experiment with ideas they haven’t thought about previously without the pressures of these unformed thoughts and concepts being traced back to them (Ewalt 2011). This is something that university lecturers have grappled with since the move to online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recorded seminars, whilst providing easy access to students who can’t make a session at the scheduled time, also mean that every word a student says within said seminar is recorded, uploaded and archived to be viewed by other students. Lecturers have found this to be damaging to student participation particularly in more controversial subject areas such as Politics or Law, where ideas that aren’t fully formed can be forever linked to you as an opinion you hold and can be judged upon (Villasenor 2020).
The same concept can be applied to the internet, where sites such as Twitter encourage you to tweet your takes on pop culture and political events in as little words as possible, with as little nuance as possible. Why should one risk posting an opinion if there’s a chance they could lose their job over it? No matter how much one means it, how much one considered all aspects of an idea before presenting it, an online post is forever. This, Christopher would argue, is the beauty of a service such as 4Chan and anonymity as a whole. The lack of traceability, the blank canvas from which to work allows for notions to develop in a vacuum where no consequences of half-baked (or controversial) thoughts can be traced back to the originator.
Total anonymity and a total lack of consequences doesn’t, however, only breed productive and intellectual discussion. Indeed, 4chan is infamous throughout the internet for being a place of toxicity, hatred and vitriol. A 2019 study conducted by Vice showed an increase of 40% regarding slurs used on the message board since 2015 with a 25% increase in comments containing both violent language and hate speech. Vice makes the strong case that 4Chan’s anonymity and relative lack of moderation combine to give “violent extremists a kind of digital safe space” (Arthur 2019).
In fact, several terrorists particularly affiliated with white supremacists have taken to 4chan (and other anonymous message boards inspired by 4chan) to post their intentions before acting and have received encouragement from other users. Cathrine Thorleifsson makes note of how ‘chans’ are adept at “memeifying fascism”. This is to say that it reduces radical, supremacist and terroristic acts to fun online jokes, things to be taken lightly as there are no consequences or social boundaries dictating otherwise (Thorleifsson 2021).
The Christchurch Shooter, Brenton Tarrant, used 8chan as a way of organising the spread of his evil ideals post-mortem, with a manifesto posted to the site outlining his motives and encouraging users to “do your part in spreading my message” by spreading memes and glorifying the acts Tarrant performed in his terrorist act.
It is clear then, that with total online anonymity comes the capacity for the worst of humanity to be unleashed. Without the constraints of society, the so called “dark heart of the internet” (Ewalt 2011) powers the bodies of terrorists and online fascists, and the question is raised as to whether it would be right to protect the identities of these kinds of people? Should there be a haven for these kinds of despicable users, who revel in death and hate crime?
But not all online anonymity works to the same extent of 4chan. Being anonymous online can be as simple as using an online pseudonym and is a necessary part of the internet for some. Social media anonymity can allow vulnerable people to speak up without fear of real-world repercussions, such as members of marginalised groups not wanting to face harassment for who they are, or victims of abuse not wanting to be known for their trauma offline.
Social media anonymity can also help to create topic-based community, with users adopting their online personas based on an interest, whether that be sport, video games, tv or another pop culture medium. People use anonymity not just to avoid consequences for their actions, but also to avoid social judgement and to make life easier to navigate online (Dyer 2021). Should anonymity be taken away from these people who wield it in such a way to only improve their own experience, or should the responsibility be placed on social media companies who fail to uphold their own terms of service and allow anonymous users to harass without consequences?
Sarah Manavis writes in a defence of anonymity that “the only way to preserve a safe online experience is for anonymity to be balanced with high levels of responsibility” which of course requires the engagement of social media companies in their moderation policies (Manavis 2021).
Whilst removing online anonymity is a change that could be enforced strictly, perhaps the onus is on large social media firms to actually enforce their policies, hiring more moderators rather than relying on algorithmic takedowns and checks. Perhaps a digital space where hate speech is taken down quickly, where harassment is dealt with not by legislative change but enforced site rules would be more pleasant than removing the comfort of anonymity from the internet.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are all behind the curve, either not dedicating enough funds to the development of serious moderation AI, not having clear enough terms of service to moderate efficiently or simply not seeming to care enough to stop the mountains of harassment and hate speech on their platforms (O'Neil 2021).
Privacy In The Data Age
Internet Privacy is an issue that has gained the acute attention of the general public over the last few years, with public figures helping promote cyber safety and making data practices of companies common knowledge. Data is collected by most every website one would use, and ranges from things included in your sign-up details to implications and guesses a company could make upon based upon how you browse a website.
Many social media companies will show a user some of this data through an “interests” page which often puts you in categories that dictate which advertisements will be shown to you (Meisenzahl 2020). Data can then be analysed to create a profile of a certain type of buyer, you specifically or simply to analyse market trends. Understandably the idea of having your “data analysed” is an unsettling one for most people. However, it often isn’t malicious on a surface level. Companies analysing what advertising works best on a certain type of consumer is something that takes place in the real world as well and isn’t necessarily limited to the digital world (Braun 2018).
However, issues occur when companies face data breaches. This is to say the data that a company holds for their marketing and user records is attacked by hackers and stolen, to be sold to those with more devious purposes. For one, stolen online data can be used for identity theft, using the victim’s details to open bank accounts, take out loans, rent property or make purchases. This could lead to the victim suffering financial damage due to the data breach. Access to this data could also allow a hacker to take over the victim’s account, which has varying degrees of seriousness ranging from financial damage to incriminating social media posts (F-Secure n.d.). As of October 2021, there had been 1,291 recorded data breaches with 281.5 million recorded victims (Morris 2021).
Protection of online privacy is therefore vital, but how would one do that? As of right now, online privacy is down to the user for the most part, with VPNs currently being the most popular one. VPNs (or virtual private networks) effectively bounce one’s IP address to another location through an encrypted tunnel. This can help to protect one’s data as it hides the location data and browser history from most websites, as well as the internet service provider (ISP). This means that if the website or the internet service provider is hacked, your data would not be breached as they wouldn’t be holding it. VPNs don’t work to obscure the data from a profile however, so if one likes a Facebook post or tweet, the activity would still be linked to the account and collecting by the host. VPNs also don’t necessarily prevent the user themselves from online attacks and data breaches (Maile McCann 2021). In this scenario, an antivirus would be necessary. An antivirus would be able to detect a potential personal data breach and hopefully nullify it or, failing that, detect already installed viruses a hacker may use to gain access to personal data.
Interestingly, privacy seems not to be of great concern to the general public. Most pieces on online privacy come from places directly involved in the space such as VPN providers or other such awareness groups, less from mainstream media sources. Very few companies and politicians want to address this as an issue in society and it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that this is due to their direct involvement in it, being the prime culprits of data collection and thusly data breaches.
Jisuk Woo makes note of the fact that people seem relatively apathetic to the idea of governments and corporations collecting their data. According to several surveys, respondents answered that they were somewhat or very concerned about online privacy yet would be willing to sacrifice it in favour of tangible or material benefits (Woo 2006). This could well be due to the lack of education on the issue, that one would have to search to find information on it. It isn’t a key point in political elections or on the news unless there is a major corporate data breach, and even then people tend to accept that their data is out there now (Mineo 2017). This lack of education and willingness to sacrifice privacy for the sake of it is surely concerning and whilst could be a deliberate choice by those in control, could also be symptomatic of a convenience culture and the value we place on our privacy online.
Clearly, many of us are willing to compromise the things we claim to value in exchange for short term suitability. A faster login to a website, quicker loading times on a web page. Brett Schneier argues that because most of our data is out of our control, and not giving up this data makes our lives that much harder, there’s not a great deal we as individuals can do (Mineo 2017). Instead, we must wait for those involved in technology, that understand how data can be better protected and regulated to work within governmental bounds, to secure our privacy for us. Outside of the already outlined personal measures of VPNs and antiviruses, that does seem to be all one could do.
Which needs the most protection - anonymity or privacy?
So, which of these vital parts of online behaviour should we be most concerned with protecting online? Anonymity is important to help those marginalised groups have a safe space online, to allow the internet to function not as a direct crossover from the real world but also as an escape into one’s interests and passions without real world consequences. Online privacy is instrumental in keeping people’s data safe from those who would use it for cybercrime as well as the prying eyes of governments.
Without the option for anonymity, though, the internet becomes merely an extension of real life. Online games, social media communities, roleplaying groups, a great many ways in which people use the internet for leisure cease to work as they once did. It is also important to note that it would be incredibly implausible to make any legislative change to anonymity and not lose some level of privacy.
If social media companies required proof of identity from one, they would surely have to be holding these details somewhere. Even if they weren’t allowed to use them for advertising, which however unlikely may be a way in which privacy could be protected more, a potential data breach would be catastrophic if all of the identifying information of users was leaked rather than simple marketing information or easily changeable passwords. Removing anonymity also hampers privacy in a more social aspect. Why should your employer be able to find a person on social media and see all of them, to the core? Why does their time spent playing an online video game need to be tied to their verified name and face? Why should an employer be able to judge your suitability to work based on irrelevant factors?
The point being made is that to protect anonymity, one must also protect aspects of online privacy. You cannot have public anonymity. The extent to which anonymity should be upheld is certainly a good topic for debate, as total untraceability can encourage the dark sides of humanity to thrive in a world of no accountability. But a level of relative anonymity is something to be protected at all costs.
Privacy, on the other hand, is a more layered issue. Society should absolutely be concerned about protecting our online privacy, but how much is it really at risk? Unless we live under an authoritarian regime, one could argue that governments having access to our online data could be instrumental in protecting citizens from potential terrorist threats and little else. Most social media companies that harness your data also use it merely to target your profile with adverts that fit your assumed interests. Data breaches remain a problem, but that isn’t down to the individual to protect. Should social media companies and government bodies keep developing ways to protect consumer data? Absolutely. But compared to the freedom and benefits of anonymity, online privacy to governments and services one uses is a worthy sacrifice.
Perhaps I myself am a victim of this compliance culture; that I have been socialised to value online privacy as something we never truly had nor can have back and so am trying to cling onto what little forms of privacy I can still trust in. A pseudonym and a separation of online and real-world cultures. Maybe I can never truly look past my own biases in this aspect, but it seems to me that total online privacy is a far harder and less meaningful battle than that of anonymity, the very thing that allows the world of material and digital to stay apart.
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