First written on 09/08/2023
This blog post requires some definitions. First of all, I must say what I mean by "social media". Throughout this text, when I will be saying "social media", I will be referring to any type of online platform that enables users to interact with one another. This broad definition includes not only the popular platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter type of stuff), but also all the forums, chats and Reddit clones.
Lastly, I must highlight the difference between anonymous social media and pseudonymous social media. "Pseudonymous" social media is where your real life identity stays potentially hidden, while you go online under a "pseudonym" - a made-up name. An example of this is Reddit: Everyone has a username which doesn't have to be their real name. This username is displayed over the comments and posts that you make, thus forming your online identity. "Anonymous" on the other hand, refers to platforms that don't have a username displayed with the content a user posts. Some anonymous websites don't even require an account in order to post. Now, platforms that don't require an account, might display something else instead. For example, on Wikipedia, you can make edits without an account, however your IP address would be displayed under those edits. I believe having an IP address under your content qualifies as a type of username, therefore platforms that do this aren't really "anonymous". An example of a popular forum that I would describe as "anonymous" is 4chan. There are also varying degrees of anonymity across different platforms. Some platforms may let you post without a username, but they would generate a random identifier that would connect all the comments that you made under a certain post. All these different mechanisms make defining "anonymous" a little hard, but I think a general definition stating that "anonymous platforms don't publicly display a username with the content" would suffice. Defining this was important because in our daily discussions regarding social media, we commonly use the word "anonymous" when we actually mean "pseudonymous".
Now that I've gotten past the definitions, I can proceed to state my reason for liking anonymous social media.
We, humans, have an inherent tendency to judge others. When we meet someone in real life, we pay attention to what they're wearing or how they're speaking. These observations help us create a mental model of this person that we've just met. As we learn more about them, we expand our mental models. We can not ultimately find out everything about them or learn their background and all the details of their life, therefore our models may be very rough and often times inaccurate. We may then use these models in order to judge this person (whether we see them as "good" or "bad"). Because our models of who this person is may be entirely wrong, we may end up misjudging them. I think that the human ability to analyze and assess other people is an important skill. After all, interactions amongst individuals shape our society, therefore carrying out those interactions with information on who you're interacting with can be a benefit. However, having incomplete or wrong information can be damaging.
When we meet someone online, we do pretty much the same thing as we do in real life. How often do you find yourself scrolling through the post history of another user? What conclusions do you draw from what you've observed?
Being able to see a user's post or comment history is a feature on most websites that require an identity (pseudonymous platforms). Anonymous platforms don't have such features because they don't attach permanent identities to posters. Obviously, the administrators of anonymous platforms may be able to tell the IP address of a user and thus be able to connect all the content that they posted under one identity. The reason for that may be to block an IP address that keeps on breaking the rules of the platform. However, this type of data is only visible to the administator and non-evil admins typically don't leak this information out to the public. Another way to possibly identify a user on an anoymous platform is to use some sort of text recognition tech that can track people based on the way they write, but doing this isn't easy. The main point is that anonymous websites don't have a way to publicly display who said what.
That should highlight the main benefit of anonymous social media - you can participate without being afraid that everything you post will be used by others to judge you. Ofcourse, this doesn't mean that you're one hundred percent safe, as there still are ways to tie all the content posted by one person, but anonymous websites are typically "safer" than pseudonymous ones as pseudonymous platforms make identifying a user much more easier for the public.
What if, one day, your secret Reddit account would be revealed to your real life friends? Or even worse, to your enemies. Your online identity composed of all the things that you've said and posted would instantly get tied to your real life identity. By posting under a pseudonym, we expect some security. Because we expect security, we sometimes find ourselves talking about things that we wouldn't say in real life. All this security would be gone the moment your pseudonym gets tied to your real name.
Anonymity has drawbacks too. You could, if you wanted to, try your best to obscure your real life identity online by using anonymous social media or having multiple accounts on pseudonymous platforms. You may even restrain from giving out details about your real life on social media in order to prevent someone from identifying you (either you real life friends finding out your online identity or someone online finding out who you are in real life). The drawback here is that people online don't get to know you. This is a good and a bad thing at the same time. Because you're trying to hide from everyone, you can't talk about everyday stuff like the weather in your region or what university you attend. Well, actually, talking about the weather won't reveal too much about you, but even revealing the slightest details could compromise your identity if you're trying to be as anonymous as possible. Not giving out sensitive information could save you in certain situations, but at the same time, you don't get to enjoy the lively conversations that happen online between people that know eachother well. If you can't talk about things connected to your life, you'll often times find yourself talking about overly general topics or topics directly related to the internet. When I'm online, you could find me talking about Linux. That is one topic I feel that I can talk about without laying out the details of my biography. In real life though, I find that talking about Linux with my friends makes me sound like an "arch btw" user, hence I tend to avoid doing that.
To conclude what I've talked about, the main reason I like anonymous social media is because it provides a little more safety than pseudonymous social media. Anonymity online is a good thing because it lets you say things without having it tied to an identity, however this also limits the topics that you can talk about.
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