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Anonymity online

by Heath Row for New York City Adholes
Monday, March 26, 2007. 06:49PM
835 Views 2 Comments

Anonymity is a big deal online. People want it in terms of ad measurement, except when they don't. And people support it otherwise, except when it's misused.

Recently, Kathy Sierra encountered and experienced some anonymity gone horribly wrong.

I'm curious what people think of the event, and I'm curious what people think should be done. There's a need for anonymity online. This event doesn't behoove it.

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Comments

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Friday, April 6, 2007. 09:42AM by Tracey Lawrence
I've been using the "world wide web" since 1994, and in the last couple of years I have noticed a marked increase in this kind of sick, negative, childish, dangerous activity. I suppose the "blogosphere" and the huge amount of personal publishing available provides a platform for such behavior. Because people can disguise themselves and launch attacks without immediate consequence, they just do it. How sad that we live in a time where people feel compelled toward terrorism simply because it's so easy to do. Destruction is easy. Creation is the true challenge.
Monday, March 26, 2007. 07:24PM by Marc Lefton
That's very disturbing. From an odds standpoint, about one in 5,000 people are dangerous sociopaths. That means more than likely, one person who is a member of this site is. In the past, we had one person on here who created quite a disturbance for a short while who could be considered paranoid schitzo - she actually believed that I created Adholes to ruin her life and that all the profiles were actually me. She thought I was making up profiles of some people who were pretty famous in the industry. I told her I only wish I was talented enough and had enough time on my hands to create elaborate websites filled with decades worth of award winning work. Fortunately she was relatively harmless, but just to think of the sleepless nights I had worrying about her – compared to what this person is going through, it was relatively nothing. The internet connects us in a positive way, but it also increases the odds that we will encounter some very disturbed people who think they can hide behind aliases – cowardly people who would likely never say boo if their real name was attached. Which is one of the reasons we require people to use their real name on this site.

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