A simple google search allows for the easy discovery of a number of articles concerning the problems that online anonymity may be generating. Nonetheless, our website should be concerned with how to withhold from these problems, employing an anonymous persona purely to spawn positive feedback in an online world flooded with never-ending bickering and racism of all kinds.
Of course, as an article recommended by our online mentor Fiona Martin mentions, the freedom of anonymous online posting has allowed for manipulation of content and an abusive, malicious and untruthful way of distributing lies or using a façade to cover up hidden agendas.
But, let’s take a deeper gaze into the playground of online anonymity and have a look at some ways in which it has benefitted individuals and the wider population who participate in the interactive world wide web.
The internet is a community, it offers endless forums for opinions to be delivered and debated upon under the push and pull of a social contract. Most obviously, online pseudonyms and mystery is necessary to assert one’s right to freedom of speech. In an age of conservatism and civil rights mess across many nations, the fear to assert one’s opinion must be protected as a basic right to living. The average citizen should not be stripped of his right to flaunt one’s emotion, opinion, educated facts or thought processes. Perhaps, online forums may monitor such posts for racial and offensive dissertation, but if these messages are delivered with respect, worldly knowledge and worthy intention then the anonymity of the author should not be of any concern.
Take, for example, Yochai Benkler’s use of Wikipedia in “The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom”. This text allows for the perfect understanding of peer production and the benefits of group collaboration in the effective and best outcome of an online construction. Where’s the importance of the author? Like Richard Stallman, Benkler believes that online software is about freedom of speech, and thus Wikipedia allows for “anyone, including anonymous passersby, to edit almost any page in the entire project” (p.70). The author is not important, as long as any borrowed information is attributed to its rightful source and that a certain level of self-discipline is maintained in order to operate faithfully and effectively online. Benkler says, “individuals pool their time, experience, wisdom and creativity to form new information, knowledge and cultural goods.” Isn’t this what is most important online? Why do we always have to attribute every piece of text online to a personality, particularly if that author chooses to remain anonymous?
Online anonymity is unavoidable.
It has become an embedded and necessary part of our internet culture. I’m not blind, of course I hear about and read first hand about all the online bickering that goes on. But can’t we all just see this for its pettiness and realize that online anonymity has so many more beneficial uses than unfavorable ones? We should embrace it for its advantages instead of demonize it for its disadvantages. If I can do it, why can’t you?
So, enough debate and convincing here. Let’s pull this all back down to earth and understand why this is relevant to the creation of our website. We want to focus on the meaningful communication tool that online anonymity may be for you. We want to demonstrate how it is an entirely useful platform for beneficial expression. How? Well let’s take a few points from Englund and Finney as direction: for them, a lot of it is about the client, for us – the target audience.
Who exactly is our target audience though?
Well, at this preliminary stage we aren’t so sure yet. Here’s a few ideas, one of which I am particularly keen on:
1. Activists/Dissidents: People wanting political or social change are often limited to what they can say, how they can say it and where they can say it. This applies to people world wide, whether they are situated in countries such as China that faces high censorship laws or countries such as Australia where freedom of speech is often taken for granted.
2. Whistleblowers: for example, those who leak to Wikileaks
3. Those who are marginalized in society: People who are targeted, bullied, alienated and undermined in communities often feel as though their voice cannot be heard. Online anonymity provides an easy avenue for them to voice themselves. This target market would also include people who want to share information such as a ‘how to grow marijuana’ manual without being named. For me, this is where our audience lies but more research will need to be done to confirm or deny this idea.
Englund and Finney ask:
1. What content structure will the user relate to
2. What is the relevance of information to the user (we must have boundaries and objectives)
3. What benefits and achievements will the user take from this website
These are the questions that I need to research more clearly and that hopefully I will be answering when I next tune into Guerrilla Ghosts…
Until then...
What do you think about this?
Anonymity for the naïve?
ReplyDeleteI agree that individuals who are marginalised and alienated in society would greatly benefit from our exploration of online anonymity. But I have had a thought about another possibly target audience….
Perhaps I am speaking from a purely personal perspective, but I have rarely - if ever - thought of the need for anonymity when using the world wide web. But as this blog has forced me to acknowledge, perhaps it is something I need to spend a little bit more time thinking about. That is why it may be a good idea for our target audience (or one group of our target audience?) to be people like myself - unsuspecting, unthinking, naive Internet users. Particularly with the recent upsweep of interest in Facebook and other social networking sites, it seems that the internet has taken us one step closer to the all-knowing and all-seeing social panopticon. Users can provide an endless barrage of information about themselves, leading to the rapidly evaporating phenomenon of anonymity. People are either unabashed about sharing their personal information, or perhaps they are like me in that they don’t realise that they are putting themselves ‘out there’. So I think it is important and worthwhile to awaken such internet users to the benefits of online anonymity, as well as to the risks of over-exposure on the net. In my view, knowledge is power - so lets help the online community be both knowledgably and powerful.
I'm liking this idea Lara.. lets talk about running with it :)
ReplyDelete