I'm gonna add my penny here, because I cannot afford $.02, but this whole concept of anonymity being somehow special to anonymous or chanology or even the web is a kind of whack. Crap, I'm a different person in my CAR than I am face to face with you. I drove to work the other day behind someone who I considered to be the worst driver EVAH, and I was pissed. Hand gestures ensued, along with choice words. Thankfully, Ms. Worst-Driver-Evah was unaware of my pique, because when I arrived at work it turns out she was a woman who works in my building with whom I am friendly. I was glad she didn't know it was me. I guess maybe what I'm trying to say is that a veneer of anonymity can be present in many situations, not just online. I truly think you see much more organization in chanology, where there is pure randomness (crap, I hate to put "ness" on any word for fear of scilon stink)... Frankly, this board isn't much different than the photography board I frequent. Different people wound up here for different reasons and all participate, contribute, etc. in various ways. The purpose of chanology, IMO, is to eradicate cos. Some do it arm chair (digitally), which is incredibly useful, some leave the arm chair and get out there IRL. Brave b/tards. Maybe imma dumb fag, but the concept just isn't that hard. (Shit. Now I gotta review this before I post so I don't sound too stupid right? Ah, fuck it. I'll take my lumps.)
Thank you for filleting first. Otherwise, maybe painful. oh wait.. "to death"? Damn. That's gonna take a while. I'll just go grab me a samich.
True, that. I'm a different person when I cycle than when I drive. Certainly more quick to anger with motorists doing things that might endanger me, because I'm more physically vulnerable on my bike than inside the big safe metal car-box. But I don't think that this difference in the way we express ourselves (and even the way we feel about ourselves and about others) invalidates the OP's thesis. If I understand him correctly, he's not trying to say that 'changes to communication style and identity while posting on WWP' is qualitatively different from 'changes to communication style and identity while cycling', just that the former is the one he happens to be studying on this occasion. tl;dr: yes, identity and communication changes across different actitivies. OP - we harness the online dis-inhibition effect. Challenge and conflict can be productive and/or entertaining. View attachment greater-internet-fuckwad-theorysimple-img_assist_c http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect
OP - you should read Quinn Norton's articles on Anonymous http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/ff_anonymous/all/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/anonymous-101-part-deux/all/ Quinn understands Anonymous much better than most other journalists. She's also a member here. Her article on Occupy is also interesting and worth reading: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/12/a-eulogy-for-occupy/all/ although kind of sad for those of use who were telling Occupy all along that they were Doin' It Wrong, but still see Occupy's failure as the triumph of experience over (naive, sometimes idiotic) hope.
Absolutely! This is one of the key frameworks for my study and I've even managed to get hold of the author, Suler, to clarify a couple of bits that seemed cloudy. But yes, at a grass roots level and whichever way you look at it, when anonymity is factored into an online presence or community (as well as other factors including the removal of authority), there is almost always some degree of behavioral, representational or attitudinal change. ... and I'm going to explore the crap out of it until my head explodes.
Not just online. Think about the anonymity of the voting booth. This ties in with moot's point in the video above about anonymity enabling honesty. [funny]
I've got a full day of University work on my plate today so I'll only be signing in to WWP periodically. For the time being, I'll leave a sort of mini-task on the thread for people to think/talk about. We've discussed theories of identity and how they can apply/not apply to WWP, anonymous, chanology e.t.c. but there's been a lot of focus on applying them to groups and collectives rather than the individual in question. Ultimately, it's each individual that my research will be focusing on so I'll try and test out a line of questioning for my interviews. So If I could leave you all with this: 2 words/phrases to describe your offline identity/self: 2 words/phrases to describe your online identity/self: So for instance mine might be offline 1. Student - online 1. Academic Researcher. So because of the environment I'm in and the purpose of being here, my proposed identity has changed somewhat to help me reach my goal. Any feedback on questions would be really appreciated too.
Some nice little coverage I didn't see coming on the BBC. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod..._How_Hackers_Changed_the_World_We_Are_Legion/ That'll be my research for this evening covered!
There's a thread about that here: https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/how-hackers-changed-the-world-we-are-legion.109260/
Yeah, most of us won't answer that because we don't want to give OSA any clue as to the actual demographic on this site.
Online: 1. Activist 2. Cynic Offline: 1. Millionaire playboy 2. President 3. Movie star 4. Sexual gymnast
I think anyone who's ever given serious thought to the issues you're looking into is not going to be interested in short answer questions like that, especially ones that ask them about their irl identity. You are going to get a hell of a lot of pushback on any questions that address irl identity. Some anons have been comfortable talking about small pieces of their irl lives, but that tends to be very removed from their sense of identity. Telling someone "I live in Massachusetts" is a fact about my existence offline, but it doesn't tell you anything about how I see myself, and those are the types of questions Anons are most likely to answer about themselves because either they've already released that information for their own purposes or it's so general that they just don't care.
This is true. I think you might have more success with questions that directly address the difference between online&anonymous versus offline communication styles. E.g. "for each of the following words, does it apply to you more when you're online&anonymous, or when you're offline in the Real World?" Shy Aggressive Demure Honest Loving Verbose Abrupt Distinguished Solitary Respected Abusive Perverted Amusing Original Caring etc etc Or you could ask a "on a scale of one to 10, how much do you feel that each of the following statements applies to you online, and offline?" Of course, don't expect truthful answers necessarily. Probably people who volunteer and communicate individually by PM will mostly give honest answers - probably - but if there's a way to give lulzy or stupid answers then people will give them, on an open thread like this.
Completely agree. Just thought I would test the water a bit as my dissertation supervisor suggested I conduct some kind of quantitative research. As expected, no-one wants to do a lame questionnaire if they want their voices heard correctly. But yeah, thanks for the feedback!
WMAnon said Segue After the Sabu matter exploded publicly, many members of LulzSec were arrested in the following months, and the inner circle of hackers comprising Anonymous began to fragment. But that disruption did little to lessen the underlying esprit—a strong sense of individual empowerment that came from an ability to act collectively and yet still maintain personal privacy. That diffusion of power and knowledge hindered many attempts at infiltration by law enforcement. Simply put, few Anons actually know anything about one another, so there are few opportunities to rat each other out. It’s a setup that the Mafia would appreciate. Christian Stork Now you understand why we have a total media blackout Sean.
I have to disagree about a "total media blackout." There are many Anons and associated people who are willing to talk to the media when appropriate.
Many? ... out of ... how many? From whence do you collect your data, good sir? Or, put another way, dox plox? That's a rather random thing to say.
See: media reports? I mean, do you really want me to google every time someone from Anonymous or one of our bffs like Biela gave an interview? How about you go watch We Are Legion?
New to this discussion: I guess I am one of the (possibly few?) anons who somewhat confirm to your initial image. When I joined WWP, my RL situation included an insecure work situation and problems on the home front that would make any attention from OSA most unwelcome. Where I come from, identifying me would be a bit easier than usual. I'm not a local celebrity by any means, but my face is probably recognized by more people that average, so I took no chances. Now we know OSA was not as efficient as rumors would have it, and their capacity has dropped dramatically, but I still see no need to help the cult out. Like Ogsonofgroo, I have opted for sticking to one identity. In order to remain anonymous, I have had to cultivate it a bit, avoiding typical phrasing I use often in real life, adopting other I only use here etc. Whenever I need to post something that would help pinpointing my real identity, I post anonymously. I also do so when I have something I think is actually important (or very silly) to ad. I guess about 1/3rd of my posts are anonymously. I am not a terribly central to anything, neither here nor in RL, but for the reasons mentioned above, I have needed to keep my two lives apart, and I would be lying if I pretended it does not occasionally give me a kick to do so.
Yeah - a lot more than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guardian's_Office_operations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_snow_white http://www.xenu.net/archive/go/selected.htm
