About Social Media Today
The internet opens up incredible opportunities for us to voice our opinions on matters that shape our culture and society. Many people have embraced that opportunity to broaden understanding and support debate on the issues.
The anonymity that the internet can afford us allows individuals to share personal or sensitive information about themselves and gives whistle-blowers a platform to release material and knowledge they feel the public should be party to.
Others seem to have seen different, more mischievous possibilities. Those minority of people who post inflammatory or offensive comments online have been given the nickname Trolls. Whilst most troll postings are blunt vulgarities or personal comments about other posters, more sophisticated techniques have begun to emerge. Concern Trolls post to internet forums or newsgroups, claiming to share its goals while deliberately working against these goals attempting to divide the community, derail debate, or damage the groups reputation.
Steven Clift, a pioneer of online communities and leading expert in eDemocracy, has discussed in this week’s Guardian Tech Weekly podcast that the way to manage a more civil debate online is to have users sign up with their real name to online forums. There are some strengths to Steven’s proposals. However to maintain the vital protection that anonymity affords to those users who would find it too dangerous or damaging to post with their real names users must supply their real name with their content to a moderator who can post the comment anonymously if its considered to be appropriate. In certain local contexts where the author might know the moderator in the real world this could prove problematic.
There is an old cartoon (its been around for 15 years so its old in internet terms), claiming ‘On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog’. My view would be that so long as you are consistently the same dog, and honestly represent your opinions and experiences across all your online interactions I’m happy enough with that. To some extent we do create a new personality online and by investing time in developing social networks and posting our thoughts or advice we can build a level of credibility, trust and reputation that is as just as powerful as our real world name, and more relevant to online debates.
