Internet Psychological Question.

[Radiant_Maelstrom]

Here is a rather odd question that I'd like to ask everyone and it is up to you to interpret the sentence (though try not to be overly silly or trolling, thank you ) .

What do you think internet anonymity and how does it effect your actions when on the internet?

[ChildhoodObesity]

tbh it rlly pisses me off??? cuz im a pretty good fighter irl and i have a lot of muscle and these kids tell me they can beat me up but they clearly cant shit makes me so angry

[Onep]

Yeah, I like to make light of suicide and pretend like it's not the only thing on my mind and I'm actually a happy person.

[Patchouli_Knowledge]

Anonymity is when people do not know who you are or what you do, so connecting that with the internet meaning no one knows of your identity online. What does it do for me? Makes me an online chameleon of a sort.

[Jalpha]

It gives people the ability to say what they truly believe, to express themselves as they truly are.

Suicide is no joke, it's a perfectly viable option. Why do people try to force others to endure a life which makes them so unhappy. To prolong their suffering. Honestly if you are feeling suicidal do it or don't. Crying for help is futile, you are the only one able to help yourself. If you want a suicide thread make one, but I don't think the forum is ready. Honestly if I had of had the nuts I would have topped myself a long time ago, and I'm sure many of you are in the same position. There is always a tipping point, where the fear of death is overcome by the pain of existence. Embrace one or the other, the middle ground is where stagnancy lies.

[Burinn]

I think anonymity on the internet is important for the free expression of ideas.


However, this inability to be held responsible for ones owns expressed opinions leaves room for people to go out of their way to terrorize others. A necessary fault I suppose.

[Ysh]

Pasting relevant:

The basic decency you would bring to light when meeting with strangers somewhere should be a guideline for the internet too.

I hope you do not put as much faith in the stranger as you put in me. This guideline means a much different thing per man you speak it to.

My point was that decency should dictate to have no difference in behaviour just because the other can't punch you in the face since he's an internet away...

[DaniAngione]

This is a really big discussion.

It goes far beyond the more mundane matters (what matters to us, honestly) like anonymous trolls annoying us and such. This is kind of obvious, surely, but I think it's important to point it out anyway.

Ok, so... The important question: what do I think about anonymity on the internet?

A: I believe it is fundamentally necessary for the internet to work as it was intended to work. It can be misused, true, but cars can be misused too. You can run over people or crash them on other people's cars. In our end, it's all a matter of decency - like Granger points out. But on the greater schemes of things, the benefits of anonymity are far greater than its problems.

Now, a more in depth explanation.
Some here might be aware of the hacker culture. I mean... Not the "omg, I'm invading sites" culture, but the actual hacker culture - the one that defined the term back when the internet was giving its first steps. The one that dialogues directly with the notions of open software and all the cyber- things (cyberactivism, cyberculture, etc...)

Ok, so... I'm not going over all the people and theories and everything behind all that There's literally a TON of stuff you can read on that - and a lot of interesting people to talk to and that are easily accessible on twitter and other social media. But a couple of names I can mention out of my head are Lev Manovich, Steward Brand, Richard Stallman, Andy Cameron, Axel Bruns, Lucia Santaella, Henry Jenkins... Hell, even Deleuze can come into the discussion with his notion of a society beyond the society of control... Anyway, and, of course, the pioneers behind the internet - "the first hackers" - and things like that, like Licklider, Welden Clark... even Ken Kesey with his crazy "Merry Pranksters" band helped, lol. (Look that up, hilarious story)

Anyway... It's recent history, there are TONS to look up. My point is, though, that the basic foundations of the internet - contributed and observed by many of these people - had the ideals of a free, diverse and non-centralized network for the sharing of knowledge and all that - even though it's partially born as a military network.
But it's to defend such ideals that we have, for instance, universal and open-source protocols (like HTTP) that are the protocols used for connections.

And the two basic principles that "guide" these ideals are:
1. anonymity
2. equity of packets

I'll quickly explain 2 before heading into 1. Packets are the "pieces and bits of information" that we are always sending and receiving. Packets can be identified - that is - governments and surveillance agencies can tell from where packets come from and to where they are going, and what they contain. That's how, for example, a country can "block" certain websites. And not only it's a matter of personal freedom but also a matter of political control - we just need to look at how things like information control are enforced in zones of conflict, how governments forbid people to upload videos asking for help or telling the truth about the situation wherever they are, etc...
So, equity of packets means that every packet should be "equal" or - in other words - impossible to be told from each other and henceforth impossible to be controlled. So information can traverse around freely.

And anonymity, the 1 principle, makes sure that not only information can be exchanged freely but also the people exchanging it are protected. So we can have amazing projects like Wikileaks or some media groups that "take the fight" and start uploading, anonimously, material sent by people in zones of conflict and such.

So this is the discussion, because, obviously, one could argue that these things can also be used by international trafficking, slave trading, child pornography, etc...

And yeah, they do, too. But like I said - cars run over people.
We don't need to talk about prohibiting cars,
we need to talk about educating people.

[ArvinJA]

It's pretty easy to figure out my RL name from this username and vice versa. However, I'm a fuckin' edgy guy so I won't hesitate to say:

GAS THE KIKES, RACE WAR NOW!

Yeah, that's right future employer who just checked my Linkedin and found it vaguely interesting: gas, the, kikes.

[Baldarich]

I like to make fun of people with down syndrome on the internet