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Hiding Behind the Computer
Category: admin Published on Saturday, 28 May 2011 13:55 Written by Nick Ross Hits: 2314
At the end of May an anonymous and married footballer obtained a British court “super injuction” to prevent The Sun from publishing a story on his alleged affair with the former Miss Wales, Imogen Thomas. To protect his family and their privacy, the footballer wanted to keep the story out of the press. However, a number of Twitter users leaked his name on the social networking site, which resulted in the player acquiring a second injunction forcing Twitter to divulge the details of the users who had revealed his identity.
One of the beauties of taking part in a virtual community is the ability for users to remain anonymous. There are a whole host of reasons for this, anything from simply not wishing to divulge personal details through to using the online forum to settle personal scores. Regardless, social responsibility or not, anonymity in cyberspace is regarded by almost all users as a right.
Of course, suing Twitter is an affront to this sense of freedom and not surprisingly the footballer’s actions created an uproar. One tweet in particular did the rounds more than any other: “xxxx xxxxx is suing Twitter. I can’t Imogen why!” Even the well-known Chelsea footballer Frank Lampard got in on the act, using the opportunity to take a cheap jab at the now downtrodden player.
The beauty of these tweets was not its effect on the private life of a well-known celebrity, but the fact that they came from your everyday tweeter, the anonymous, unheard of internet user who, through the power of their online posts, was having a say. Hiding behind their monitor, they were able to voice their thoughts something that, had it been face-to-face, would most likely have been muted.
Who Let the Dogs Out?
A similar episode erupted in Hanoi in early May with the appearance of the website hanoiwatchdog.blogspot.com.
Taking a punch at the newhanoian.com, the owner of the ‘watchdog’ site claimed that they had recently spent “several hours talking down a friend who was so incensed by what had been written about his business on [The New Hanoian] that he wanted to take a baseball bat to its owner’s head. [Watchdog had] talked him out of it, barely, by promising him that there was an alternative solution.”
The writer then went on to demand an apology from The New Hanoian’s owner for a number of supposed “offenses” including the “lack of effective and appropriate moderation,” the “lack of accountability”, “The site’s use as a forum for settling personal scores and vendettas”, and, most interestingly, “the disincentive to honesty created by allowing all reviewers to remain anonymous.”
The main problem with this approach was that Watchdog remained anonymous — this in itself is hypocritical. They were also guilty of one of their own accusations against The New Hanoian: whether rightly or wrongly they were using their own site as “a forum for settling personal scores and vendettas.”
Uncle Ben Says . . .
In a village posing as a big city such as Hanoi, not surprisingly this website became the focus of conversation. Verbally, many agreed in part with some of Watchdog’s concerns, while others were quite fervently against what this anonymous person was trying to do. Key, though, was that from the conversations this writer had, regardless of opinion, no-one gave Watchdog verbal abuse.
And yet, back on hanoiwatchdog.blogspot.com, anonymous user after anonymous user came out with angry attacks towards Watchdog. Swearing, abuse and much more appeared in the comments section, with users hiding behind their computers to say something that they wouldn’t dare say face on.
At the time of writing, Hanoi Watchdog vs. New Hanoian was still an ongoing saga. But together with the unnamed footballer affair on Twitter, it demonstrates a new factor in online social media. Online anonymity is a source of power, but with great power comes great responsibility — and also great abuse of it.