Anonymity vs. Transparency [Infographic]

I firmly believe that anonymity is in many cases the only tool to express oneself, like when power asymmetries or divergence from social conventions make such an expression extremely expensive.

Anonymity is fundamental for democracy. If it was not, there would be no secret voting. Other examples in which anonymity is obviously required are when you need an honest opinion which could be affected by power asymmetry (rate your professor, give your employer some feedback, etc); when the subject matter requires privacy (sexual behavior poll); and so on.

Dealing with anonymity in the internet is not easy. The usual problems are slander, low quality content, trolls, spam, etc. [Shameless plug ahead] That is part of our mission at spottiness.com. We allow anonymous users to send messages that remain posted in our web site. We guarantee the quality of the content of the messages, and although there is no way to fend off slander from the beginning, the site offers tools to fight back.

Having a corporation track all your visits, readings and posts on the internet such as Facebook is trying to establish, and to be able to accurately link it to your identity, is about power control and money, and not to your benefit. It is such an unpleasant possibility that expert PR firms plant absurd infographics and stories every day to promote this agenda and pay armies to downvote or otherwise disenfranchise all who question the plan. The propaganda is working as we see here in this discussion all the people now have bought in and are promoting corporate surveillance and control of lives as if it is a good thing in any way whatsoever.

If you have a system of anonymity or pseudonymity, it's always possible to identify yourself by a real identity if you want to. Whether this takes the form of 4chan's "photo with a shoe on your head" or Reddit's "Post about this to your twitter account", reliably associating a pseudonym to a meatspace person is easy. So you can get the advantages of the 'transparent' system in a pseudonymous system if you want them, but you're never forced to.

The only way to properly run a transparent system is to force everyone to identify themselves. Then you can't get any of the benefits of anonymity.

The only people pushing for 'transparent systems' are people who have some material gain from them - advertisers, information miners, law enforcement etc. I think they have enough power as it is.

So I'm in favour of anonymity by default, keeping the choice to be transparent in the hands of the individual.

He concluded that 'evil' behavior is a product of a combination of:

1) Mindlessly taking the first small step (eg Milgrim Experiment - the first 45volts couldn't be felt)

2) Dehumanization of others (giving them numbers in a prison)

3) De-individualisation of self (anonymity)

4) Diffusion of personal responsibility (saying a higher authority takes responsibility)

5) Blind obedience to authority

6) Uncritical conformity to group norms ('Everyone else is doing it')

7) Passive tolerance of Evil through Inactions and/or Indifference

8) New or unfamiliar situations (default actions don't apply so morality can become disengaged)

If you take this in the context of anonymity online, a substantial number of these factors are heavily involved(2,3,4 and potentially 1,7&8).

Anonymity has its advantages, but the encouragement of it diffuses people's responsibility, potentially encourages 'evil' action, and has subsequently risk of escalation...

I think my vote has to be transparency.

TED talk link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_o...

It's been said before I'm sure but I don't need Zuckerberg lecturing me on integrity.

This can be direct, as with all the modern tracking technologies and personal information that businesses try to collect about you even if they don't really need it, but it can also be more subtle, for example where social networking sites can build up a profile on you based on information implied by your relationships, or where information from sources you might expect to be independent is aggregated and available for data mining by a single entity. It also cuts both ways, if you wanted to share certain things but for some reason were prevented from doing so, leaving others with incomplete or out-of-date information even though you were willing to share that kind of data with them.

I think the more serious problem here is that this is a Pandora's box problem. Once your life is out in the open, there is no way to put it back, but the consequences are not always immediately obvious.

Perhaps as a society we should grow up and learn not to evaluate people based on isolated data or out-of-context incidents that we find out about their past, but as any politician, insurance company or judge can tell you, that's not going to happen any time soon. It's probably a generational shift if it's even possible at all.

In the meantime, an entire generation are growing up sharing their lives on Facebook and Twitter and being physically tracked via their mobile devices and travel smartcards and logging every purchase/refund they ever made with credit/debit/loyalty cards. It's only a matter of time before "bad candidates" don't even get their CVs read because the employer's automated background checks picked up a black flag, "bad customers" (who expect the product/service they paid for and complain if they don't get it) see their consumer rights eroded by the power of the database, "bad clients" can't get useful or even legally required insurance because their profile fits a high risk group, and so on. These trends are already well established, but as Pastor Niemöller explained, first they came for the communists and I was not a communist...

An amusing anecdote to close with: just a few hours ago, I read a comment by someone who works at Facebook, observing that most people there also maintain a separate LinkedIn profile because they want to keep their personal and professional lives separate. Apparently Zuckerberg hires a lot of people who, in his judgement, have a "lack of integrity".

Given the harassment Anonymous has given to Sony execs, its not surprising that there's a certain invisible wall between the rest of the world and those in privileged positions. I guess anonymity of everyday activitists is a one way to redress that.