Anonymity on the internet is being threatened. Websites,
specially e-Commerce sites, facing perception of astro-turfing are increasingly
insisting on users to reveal themselves before narrating their experiences. These
sites are requiring users to either log-in or be authenticated using their Google+
or Facebook credentials before speaking out their mind.
One of the biggest advantages of Internet was that it
enabled individuals to interact anonymously. You could speak whatever came to
your mind without fear of any retaliation or ridicule. This was best illustrated by Peter Steiner in his 1993 cartoon
This freedom, unfortunately, came with a rise in vitriol,
threats delivered anonymously, and open display of downright uncivil and
asinine behavior. Social media took this
to a whole next level.
As users went online for their default interactions in daily
life, businesses woke up to the great potential of knowing every intimate details
of behavior of their users in order to derive a competitive advantage. In that
process they also became aware of the damaging potential caused due to
amplification of even one single adverse comment. ( my post: There is A Lot Riding on those Stars). A dissatisfied customer faced
a fine
of $3500 by a website for posting a
negative comment, years ago. An absurdity? You bet!
This was collateral fallout of the interactive Web2.0 that
records everything.
Clearly, the ground is shifting toward diminishing the level
of anonymity in order to “customize” and serve the customer and the community
“better.” Pundits have hypothesized
that revealing identity causes us to self-enforce social behavior online.
"Most individuals try to present themselves online the way they think
society is expecting them to”
Today it is not a hyperbole to state that we are standing naked
in the glare of data collection at an unprecedented scale and the “big data.”
Challenging Permanency of Everything
Meanwhile, another movement in a different direction has been
taking shape at the same time.
Teens (in US and Europe) are not spending as much of their
waking hours on Facebook. The social networking giant does not seem to be “cool
any more”.
They have been using other means that may appear more
“private” to communicate between themselves. The sudden popularity of services
like Snapchat, where your messages live for a very short time, is a testimony
to this trend.
Earlier the youngsters
found that their unbridled posts on Facebook were being used by hiring managers
to “judge” their actions adversely.
Recently Farhad Manjoo (+Farhad Manjoo), an analyst at Wall Street Journal, ventured
that this is beginning of a demand for an erasable Internet. So long as “data
persists,” is "indexable", and is “easily accessible”, it will be used, no matter what.
Balancing the Two?
It makes sense to see both the developments going
hand in hand. Informal conversation and
chat between friends are supposed to have very short half-life. These are not
supposed to hang in the air like an unmoving cloud.
A permanent repository of all conversations, being capable
of being played back or accessed at a moment’s notice, is a perfect antidote for
enduring relationships. It is for a reason that human memory is capable of
filtering out casual interactions or impetus behavior, retaining things that
have longer, lasting impact.
So if you take the anonymity away from Internet, it stand to
reason why anyone would want internet to be erasable. If connecting the large
number of disparate dots is acceptable, then people would want fewer of those to
exist to be connected.
