Billions of people us social media accounts to share about their personal lives, hobbies, and more, but what is a burner account, and how are they used? Many people use burner Twitter and Facebook accounts in order to post things they wouldn't typically want to post under their true identity, or they use the account as a form or satire or extremity. Usually these burner accounts are used under fake and ridiculous names that typically give away that the account is not the user's true identity, but at times it is not so obvious to people that these burner accounts are not real people. For example, in Saslow's article "How Lies Become Truth in Online America", Blair uses many burner accounts to anger Conservative social media users. He even uses burner accounts sometimes named "Flagg Eagleton" and poses as a conservative in order to trick other users into saying offensive things, only to later publicly expose them for what they had said. It may be absurd to think that people could truly believe that there is someone out there actually named Flagg Eagleton making extreme political comments, but people believe it, and even agree to things Blair posts ironically.
This raises the question of whether or not it is morally "okay" for Blair and others like him to be baiting and tricking others online using burners, only to later expose them. Since the ethics of internet use and technology are rather indiscernible at the time, let's look at this as if was a face to face interaction. Imagine someone who lies about their identity, and dresses and talks like they are someone completely different from who they truly are in order to gain from the problems they cause with others on a day to day basis. I think that most people would tend to believe that this is outright wrong and manipulative. So why is it okay for Blair and others to be doing this online, when it can be even harder for people to see the truth?
All in all, I firmly believe using burner accounts in order to manipulate and gain is wrong and should be considered as such, given the comparisons to how "real life" interactions of the same capacity would work.
You do a good job of integrating the Saslow article into your argument rather than as an afterthought, however I would suggest breaking up your text into smaller sections and increasing your text size to increase the visual appeal and readability of the post.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a good job of expressing your opinion so the reader understands your point of view clearly. However, I think you should try and incorporate the reading more and support your opinion with more facts. You should limit the amount of assumptions you make.
ReplyDeleteHi Joseph, I think you did a good job of connecting the reading to something you observe in your own life, but I think you could do a little bit more analysis of the readings. Right now your post is just giving me more examples of how people lie on the internet, but your lacking a deeper insight into why they do it or what you think can be done to curb it. Maybe take a stronger stance in your post.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting post. Obviously burner accounts used for cyber bullying are terrible, but what about private instagrams (finstas) which are typically used as online diaries? Finstas are not necessarily used to talk shit about people, but are rather used to post about partying and feelings.
ReplyDeleteWhile finstas are not technically morally wrong, I wonder about the implications that they may cause. I just don't think if you would post something to the masses, then you shouldn't post it at all. Chances are, someone is going to screenshot whatever you posted, and it's going to spread.
I quite enjoyed reading this post. I liked that you really incorporated the Saslow reading into your post instead of just bringing it in at the end. My suggestion would be to possibly use one of the other class readings from week 2 to add additional support to your argument as opposed to just describing the examples from the Saslow article.
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