Online behaviour - trolls and anonymity

Online behaviour - trolls and anonymity

Very interesting article about online behaviour - makes me think that generally we have it pretty good around here, maybe because generally we all know who each of us are anyway.

This website wouldn't exist if users didn't have the option of being anonymous.

I don't use a pseudonym as I have no imagination (as you can see). If my surname wasn't so long and hyphenated then I would include that in full.

But that isn't because I have always wanted to be open. I've been engaged in online discussions since I was about 13 years old - circa 1997 - largely due to that...interesting telecom service called Xtra chat. In those days and probably the following 5 years I was too young and stupid to really understand what the internet was and what my contributions would be. I operated under a pseudo, one that reflected my 13 year old self, where at the time I no doubt thought it was clever and deep but it was actually one of those that if I saw today, I would lambast as being something contrived by an annoying spotty kid who knows nothing. For that reason, and that reason alone, I am not going to reveal that name!

Around the time I joined the Police in London in 2003, I was made a moderator of an independent recruitment forum, as I worked in police recruitment at the time. While the majority of the posts were genuine, I found as a moderator many people would troll under false identities. There were also people who would post under an assumed identity who were genuinely trying to assist the topic of the thread, but their contribution was inaccurate. Other forum members would jump up and down all over this person and just generally cease all forum contributions from that person - or they would create a new pseudonym.

There is no accountability under pseudonyms. Some like this but as a mod on a forum where people were genuinely concerned and/or excited, or looking for more information about joining the Police, I decided that operating under my actual name made me accountable for my posts. That nickname has stuck since. Pretty much due to embarrassment of my former pseudo and my generally creative laziness.

Things have changed so much since 2003 though, blogs especially have exploded, Web 2.0 has encouraged people to interact more with the internet and boy, trolls-a-plenty. You only need to read some sparsely moderated blogs such as kiwiblog, standard and whaleoil - or read any CNET news story about Apple products (or just any CNET news story) or YouTube comments to see how people use anonymity to promote hatred and malice where-ever and whenever they can. Even the noted articles' publisher The Guardian isn't immune to trolls (although, like the BBC, they have some pretty hardcore moderators).

It is a tricky one. I don't know whether I would have been brave enough to contribute online at 13 if I had to use my real name - cyber bullying was in its infancy back then and while I was not a victim of such an act, the threat was still present and operating behind a mask and being able to control who can access your information and how much you were willing to give up was completely under YOUR control.

But as I said before, the internet is a different place now. Much faster than 48,000bps, Geocities, HotBot and zfree existed, you don't have to sit in front of a large CRT monitor to do your trolling. Now you can make derogatory and spiteful comments from the comfort of your toilet throne on your mobile phone. Companies, especially the likes of Google are so powerful and rich with personal information that you can search pretty much anything and get information dating back 15 years easy. I don't know about you guys, but I was a completely different person 10 years ago...yet a google search on my name brings up some forum posts and profiles I made in 2001.

It seems like posting on the internet these days embeds your contribution for a lifetime, maybe even longer. Who knows. It would be very unfair if people based my character on stupid things I posted when I was 16 or 17 years old, and that is what I agree with you about JD. I would not want my posts searchable on the internet - unless I had control on WHO gets to see my contribution, WHAT they get to see and HOW MUCH they are allowed to see.

That makes the internet more complicated.

For the record, the posts made in 2000,2001 by me generally were me complaining about Counterstrike hacks and 56k fragging.

Never mind 10 years ago, I look back at some of the things I posted on here 10 months ago and cringe.

Not trying to kiss @ss... but the mods on here need to take some credit I think. A forum is only ever as good as its mods. And trolls learn to stay away pretty quick from anything with decent moderation. Hence why unmoderated comments/forums etc are the worst (e.g. youtoob). Plus people here are pretty quick at calling out trolls for what they are.

SACK JAMES DEAN!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5HWzwa3KOo

A few years back I recall the first thing said in a chat room was 'asl?' (perhaps only with the young teens) Weirdly, that was the only important matter.  Names were irrelevant.

I remember the avalanche of conversation directed at anyone whose "s" response was "F".

I remember dialing up BBSs with my 1200 baud modem.  True fact.

Ah good old "asl?" so dodgy looking back on it.

I played World of Warcraft for about six months whn it was first released in 2005 and as it was all US servers back then as soon as my guild heard my kiwi female tones on Vent that was it I got invited to every raid even tho was a half assed player. None of my mates cd work out why I leveled up twice as fast as them and it was simply down to any female being popular in a gaming environment even tho I lived a continent away. These days everyone is cynical (maybe rightly so) and no one trusts that an online female really is female in rl

Not that it should ultimately matter.

I played WoW for a bit in 2004. Mikecj was taken, so I used a different name - Uselessmike.

Forgot about that one.

I'm not sure that many people ever has. There is/was that social stigma about computing and gaming that probably has grown out of the stereotype that heavy internet and gaming users are big, fat, sweaty, unsociable nerds who have personas and avatars of slim, young attractive girls.

But it also works the other way too, I know my sisters friend would go online under a male sounding, or gender neutral names (like stealthkiwi) to avoid unwanted attention and constant requests for PM or Cyber.

I really want to say that by having, in this example my sisters friend reveal her true identity as a young single woman who happens to like to socialise online might open her up to potential danger.

But I can't. Because in this hypothetical world everyone would be exposed, and that could either shut out people like my sisters friends from venturing onto internet socialising and networking, or push my sisters friend into places where it is known to be safe (like Virtual Life...)

Removing anonymity may expose trolls and bullies for who they are, but they will still be trolls and bullies. Just nerdy trolls and bullies.

Hah!

 
this sounds all too familiar

my flatmate last year played about 8 hours a day on WoW, as well as her full time  job. she met some american guy on there, flew over to meet him, got engaged and is now trying to get a visa.

I seem to remember the same confusion regarding Kiwi Pie amongst a number of forum members back in the day.

I'm whatever you want me to be, babycakes.

To be fair, you weren't too far off.

To be fair, you weren't too far off.

This rofl has brightened my day immensely.

what did 1200baud trolling look like?

Needs more Aussies.





Kidding!

 

To be fair, you weren't too far off.

One of my Brothers ex's did that.. Well, all I know is she went over to the U.S to meet some guy from WoW..

I find that so weird......

Where is Dingo's Son?

WOW is really intensive - to play the fun high end stuff you have to be putting in major hours ea week minimun of 30 or so and many people play 50 up on top of their jobs... and you have to be long to a guild to play the good stuff so you're spending those huge amount of hours constantly talking to the same people and get to know them pretty well. and the type of person who keeps playing wow usually doesn't have a life outside of it so they build really deep bonds within the game. there is a great documentary out there about how wow ruins lives and about rehab places for addicted gamers - it also shows lots of nerd weddings

I have a mate who had two guys as his groomsmen which he met from playing counterstrike. They were the least fun two at the stag do apart from the groom - who is a dead ringer for the dentist off The Hangover personality wise.

This. WoW extremely addictive because of the amount of time you have to dedicate to it, and the trolling and showboating that goes on in the "cities" and personal/guild achievements gives you status in a server populated by tens of thousands of other people (about 12 million total i think, most of whom are paying US$15 a month to play this game).

There have been a number of social experiments conducted on MMORPG's like WoW, the most useful one I can remember was when the Game released a blood plague patch that 'infected' your character within the major cities within the game. The plague would spread from player to player within the cities and you would 'die' and it would be annoying.
More experienced players maybe able to correct me, but I think the developers neglected to make "pets", creatures that some player classes have control over, immune to the plague and these pets were able to spread the plague outside of the cities. From there they would infect other players, who would then pass on to other players. The way that people reacted to the pandemic was of interest and found similarities to what would happen in a real life situation - e.g. players would find areas where the plague had not reached - keeping strangers or infected players away from unaffected etc.

The amount of time and energy required for this game is horrible in a way. You could play for weeks on end, 6-8 hours a day on top of working full time to get a measly jacket or sword with +15 damage or something. All of this is spurred on by other players, who for the most part you do not know, despite talking to them for hours on end. The game is designed to lure you back, even to the point there they have a 1,2,3 day 'cooldown' period for certain quests or to do certain things

In the year or so I played this game I formed friendships with a number of people who I have never met. To this day I still regularly talk to a friend in Norway who I 'met' on WoW in 2004, purely because at that time I was spending way too much time talking to the people in my online guild than I was to my friends and family in NZ.

I think there was a point on the 3rd morning in a row when I woke up at 3.45am to join my european guild mates on the other side of the world to join in a raid in a dungeon that I would get nothing from, I realised that this was actually dangerously unhealthy. I did not know who these people were, and because of my knack of giving names, everyone knew who I was. Every now and again, usually when a new expansion pack is released, I will go and have a look. I have a middle aged uncle who has played the game since 2003, sometimes it is the only way to contact him so I will have a look around on his account. In 8 years or so it is still pretty much the same, socially. People still selling fake gold, people still spewing racism and bile and trolling away, people still bemoaning server restarts and maintenance shut downs. It is still the grinding waste of time it was half a decade ago.

In a game where the object of the game is to basically kill things and people, and when you are dealing with people who are so entrenched and dedicated to such endeavors - I felt that it was more than unhealthy, it is dangerous.

Maybe remove anonymity from online games too? I read that Anders Behring Breivik played WoW...

See, this does not surprise me.

Didn't read much of this thread, but this TED talk is very interesting. 4Chan, Anonymity and the internet. Anyway, Moot talk at at TED conference. Very worth the watch and for those not familiar with TED, you may now need a bigger bandwidth cap.

http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for_anonymity_online.html
linds22011-07-26 23:29:48