Online identity: is authenticity or anonymity more important?
Before Facebook and Google became the megaliths of the web, the most famous online adage was, "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog". It seems the days when people were allowed to be dogs is coming to a close
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/19/online-identity-authenticity-anonymity
The argument (and trend) seems to be that real identities enable more people to trust the web, and thus take part in it :
"Allan believes the benefits of authentic identity outweigh the costs.
Facebook and other services with an assurance of security and
credibility are more inclusive, and open up the web to new audiences who
never would have gone online before, he says. "We're optimists.
Facebook enables hundreds of millions of people to express themselves
online because they didn't have or know how to use the tools they
needed." Facebook, he believes, is a stepping stone to the rest of the
web."
My personal position is that while it would
be good to have consistent identities online (regular use of same
psuedonym, or a limited set of psuedonyms, across platforms) there are
many reasons why this should not mean real life identity. The biggest
reason is perhaps the dangers people would expose themselves to, from
the obvious cases of antagonizing a repressive (or even democratic)
systems laws to the more widespread risk of 'peer-to-peer' persecution
and mob justice. The internet often brings out the worst in both people
and state in how they react to perceived violations of norms and values,
and revealing one's true identity would expose one to this. Of course
it may be argued that if everyone is identifiable then the risk from
trolls etc. is also removed, but while this might temper it, and prevent
outright illegal persection, it would not prevent plenty of malign and
vindictive behaviour. Furthermore it is a fact that the nastiest people
are often the most passionate, and hence most likely to go to the effort
to bypass any authentication system (something which will always be
possible no matter how well implemented).
Furthermore,
on a lower level, but still important, there is the problem of
interaction with real world relationships - friends, acquaintances,
co-workers employers etc. The sharing and linking of the web means
anything one says or does can easily be passed on, taking it out of the
intended social circle, and out of context. The result would be that, if
real identities were necessitated on services such as blogger, one
would have the option of either limiting who can hear to a (hopefully)
trustworthy small circle of friends, or resort to comments so bland and
innane as to be worthless (and even this might not work, since even a
fair and balanced statement might anger a racist or bigotted associate).
It
is interesting that such a anonymous-but-traceable approach is
supported even in the restrictive regimes of China and South Korea:
"An online identity can be as permanent as an offline one: pseudonymous
users often identify themselves in different social networks using the
same account name. But because their handles aren't based on real names,
they can deliberately delineate their identity accordingly, and
reassert anonymity if they wish. Psychologists argue that this is
valuable for the development of a sense of who one is, who one can be,
and how one fits into different contexts. This kind of activity is
allowed even in countries where social network account holders are
required to register for a service using a national ID, as in South
Korea and China; their online public identities are still fabrications.
Even with this explicit link with the state, when users are aware that
their activities online are traceable, identity play continues."
This
would make it seem that in some ways China is more permissive than
Google, since although the state might want to know if you're a dog, it
will still let you bark around the virtual park if you want; when it
comes to Google+ however, no dogs allowed.
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