A
forum is a space where ideas are exchanged, and viewpoints change hands like a
commodity. People can talk about things they’re interested with like minded
people, and there is an assumption of good faith; forum users will generally act
just as they would offline, because you don’t want a bad reputation on your small
forum. Of course, there are always a few trolls, but in general, you’re going
to experience high quality conversations that you could expect in real life. At
least, this was how forums used to be.
Nowadays,
forums have never been more prevalent. Or rather, I should say nowadays, one forum is more prevalent than ever before. Reddit ranks #18th in the world
in global internet engagement according to Alexa, and it is a mega forum, with millions
of users. The fact that there are now so many users adds another layer separating 2 people from talking to each other. This allows people to interact with others without considering courtesy,
or respect. No longer are you interacting with another person, because when you
interact with another person, they’ll remember what you said and respond
accordingly in the future, but there are no such repercussions with the
anonymity of today’s forums. When you argue on a forum online, you’re more
making a speech to a crowd than talking to an individual person.
Some usernames contain extra information. We can infer that if someone’s
named “joebro1992” that the user is most likely named Joe, and born in 1992, or
from a less obvious username, like “xX_dark_slayer_Xx”, a likely age range for
this user. However, others abuse their anonymity, and try to separate their
online persona from the personal life as much as possible. Floridi talks about this in Information Ethics (2010), describing information-as-a-resource ethics. He posits that sometimes explicit withdrawal of information can be a way to achieve goals. On reddit, unless you hand someone else information about yourself, no one can disprove facts about you, and you can use this to manipulate arguments in your favor, like pretending to be a certain ethnicity to have credibility.
As the influence of
reddit grows, we need to consider how it warps the traditional idea of a forum
to the point where it may need new terms to describe how it operates. Will reddit facilitate conversation, or has it passed the point where its effects are positive?
Nice article! While I do somewhat agree that smaller online communities are typically friendlier, I think that the inherent anonymity of most Internet forums grants that a lot of people would act differently online than in person whether bad or good. I think when online communities grow as large as Reddit, we become alienated from the personhood of other users due to the inconceivable amount and facelessness. I also wonder how platforms like Twitter affect communication when there's so much information being thrown at you in a highly condensed form. Lastly, just want to mention that when introducing Floridi to give a little more context on him to make the content more accessible.
ReplyDeleteInteresting reflection! We're always told not to believe what we read online, but for some reason there is a tendency to believe what a user on a forum says. These users can then influence us and our opinions with false information. It would be interesting to hear about the negative repercussions of this anonymity. What are some large scale effects that the spread of false information on forums can cause? Are there any solutions that can be enforced through regulation. Great article anyway!
ReplyDeleteGreat read! The title pulled me in and made we want to read. You bring up interesting points about Reddit and it made me have a new perspective of the forum and some of the underlying biases behind it. You bring up Floridi in the penultimate paragraph, but I think you should tie him into the blog earlier than that to make the post more about how Reddit connects to Florid's ideas. Overall, a lot of good information and thought in this blog.
ReplyDeleteGreat Article!! I have a mixed stance on certain parts of this article. I understand the perspective of the cons of anonymous users on forums and social media platforms. But also consider situations in the world where maintaining an anonymous status is paramount for safety and credible news(think oppressed countries). There are parts of the article where valid arguments are tied back into the readings which was really awesome. I really liked the article and thought you did a great job!!
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