The creation of the Internet has undoubtedly given millions of opportunities (to name a few: access music/videos, access news, access help, retrieve answers, communication, etc.), but one I’d really like to draw your attention on is the basic ability to be an anonymous identity. It is not hard to become another person, or perhaps multiple persons, on the Web. Basically any site or even online game where you can create an account (nearly almost all interactive sites) easily enables you to become another character.
This is super exciting, isn’t it? The chance to be someone you’ve always dreamed, or to be a better representation of yourself? You can be whatever or whoever you want, something we can’t achieve in reality. I’ve experienced and lived the joy of this myself when I was young and naive, playing an online video game called Maplestory (don’t judge me). The game allowed me to liberally create my own character (choice of eye colour, hair colour, facial features, and clothing). It was adorable, I loved it! But anyways, I’m getting too off topic…
Anonymity not only allows you to fulfill your fantasy of being a certain person, but it also enables you to speak freely without self-exposure. Take PostSecret, as an advanced example, where the site invites people everywhere to send their confessions in the form of postcards, and gets posted as anonymous. There are also comments posted by nameless people that are a sharing of opinion on certain topics (such as on a news article online). The liberation of being able to speak freely without self-exposure is a great opportunity to contribute to matters, because it makes one a neutral voice as everybody else.
However, many times people take this as an advantage, and we see this evidently almost every day (active Internet users like I). “Cyberbullying” (ex. Amanda Todd’s case raised massive awareness; happened in 2012 and is still being talked about today) is widespread across the Web, bullying and offending others with no restrictions as anonymous faces. This has led people as young as 12 to develop intense depression and anxiety to points of suicide.
Cyberbullying is just one serious issue of people taking anonymity on the Internet as an advantage to expressively and ruthlessly hurt others, but we must also be cautious of “online predators”. Check out this article “Man with Fake Facebook Account Lures and Kills Teen Girl“, where a man behind a fake facebook profile lured and kidnapped a girl local to his area; the girl died from being tightly duct-taped while riding the man’s pick-up truck. The article raised a critical question about social media, “Is social media too easy to use for negative purposes? (…) there are privacy settings for these accounts, but could there be something more to help protect users, especially ones so young?” The article suggests that by simply being part of a social network community, people are exposing themselves to potential danger. Many people do not appear to be who they truly are.
It’s especially scary to know that a similar situation happened to someone I knew from high school. Thankfully one of her friends was able to prove that the person whom she was making close contact with was a fraud, saving her from meeting him. Is there a way to getting out of this? Is it possible to have “stricter ways to verify one’s identity?”
I conclude that the cons of being anonymous on the Internet outweigh the pros, as they do lead to serious life-threatening concerns.