Anonymity Online

With todays technology anonymity is a bigger part of our lives than ever before. But the anonymity has brought up the question should people remain anonymous no matter what? As long as they are not doing anything illegal, people should always remain anonymous.

The Internet has brought about a level of connectedness that has never existed on this planet before. People are able to connect with each other across the world in an instant. But with this increased communication ability we have become farther apart than ever before. A level of Anonymity never before seen has gone hand in hand with the new ability to connect. Anonymity has been a blessing and a curse. It has been used to do good and to do bad. There are some people that say that those who say offensive things should be exposed to the public, but they should not.

In today’s society we are brought up to be “proper” which I do not necessarily think is a bad thing, but it has been taken to the extreme. Kids today are coddled and protected more than ever before. They are told to not say anything that will offend someone else. I feel that a result of this is why people are so vulgar and inappropriate online. The Internet is the only place where they feel safe to post how they really feel, or the place that they can get it all out of their system before going off, back into the real world.

Yes racism still exists in the world today, but it is nowhere near as bad as it once was. As Jeff Winger from the show Community says, “I think not being racist is the new racism.” Nobody in the world can claim that they have not disliked at least one person in their lifetime, however feeling bad about not getting along with that person because they are a different nationality is wrong. This is the reason that many people over compensate so much online with racist remarks. A very small percentage of people who make racist remarks online are actually part of organizations such as the KKK. They are just over compensating for having to keep all of their thoughts all bottled up.

I have gone to school with people like this. In real life they are some of the nicest people, but playing online games with them over Xbox live, they turn into some of the rudest people out there, using racist terms and verbally attacking people. But the next day at school they were back to normal, back to the quiet kids that they had always been.

The Internet can be a place of release, a place where you can be whoever you want, an escape from reality. This is why people’s identity should not be exposed for rude and offensive behavior. It is better for people to release their stress online, to be jerks, than to have them blow up in real life and potentially injure themselves or others.

The Internet is a place without boundaries. You must be responsible for yourself and use your common sense. Although it is almost impossible to avoid offensive material all together on the Internet you can do many things to limit the amount that you are exposed to. You must also recognize the audience of that community. The majority of offensive remarks made are by younger kids that try to fit in or get noticed for the comments that they make. And what better way to get noticed than to say something that you are not supposed to.

The website Fat Ugly or Slutty demonstrates sexist remarks made to female members of online gaming communities. It is obvious reading these messages that most of them come from young kids who are saying them because they have heard them as being very offensive to women and cannot think of anything else to say. But as being a member of Xbox live and getting many angry messages myself, I can honestly say that they are being treated the same as everyone else. I have received and seen messages that are much worse than those. With such a high population of male players in these communities, the female members are sometimes treated like the male members, in which for most cases nothing is too rude or unacceptable to say.

There has to be a line for Anonymity. As in real life, there has to be things that are not acceptable. If, and only if, these lines are crossed, a persons right to anonymity online should be lost. An example of crossing this line would be breaking a law. In these cases it is safer for everyone if these people do not remain anonymous.

Anonymity also protects people on the Internet, people who are willing to speak out against injustice in government and society. People can speak out against things like oppressive regimes and violence without the fear of having the people who are committing these injustices.

The Internet is the last outlet for people to truly express themselves. The key component to this is the aspect of being able to express yourself without the fear of being ostracized for what it is they have to say. Taking away anonymity from the Internet would change what the Internet is. It would just turn into a everyone being fake and not able to truly express themselves.

If we were to start exposing people’s identities for submitting offensive material, things like racist remarks, where we would stop? Anything put on the Internet can be considered offensive to one group of people or another. How could we make everyone happy? Which values would be deemed acceptable, be put above another? Even if we could come up with a set of guidelines that we deem fit, how would we justify the consequences of releasing these identities? Would one offensive remark validate harm coming to that person? This is why anonymity must be sustained in the Internet, because once we remove it for some people, it will never stop.