Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked | Hacker News Reader

Identity and the web: what Moot overlooked

michaelsiedlecki.com

38 pointsneoveller37 comments

This is really quite interesting, but only from a social sciences perspective. Here's where social sciences and real socialization differ: the plural of anecdote is data in the real world. Here's a great example: "He asserts that being restricted to a real name (G+ no longer does this) rather than anonymity or a pseudonym is incorrect, because it restricts what we do and share. Is he wrong? Yes, absolutely."

How many gay teens are posting on LGBT support and community sites using pseudonyms because they don't want to publicly out themselves? How many people are posting about breaking DRM anonymously or under pseudonyms to get around draconian laws? These directly fly in the face of the assertion that requiring your discussions and actions to be tied to your real name doesn't impact what you say or do. There's value in real-life identities, but that does not in any way diminish the value of anonymity and pseudonymity.

For that case, I agree with you. Where I refute Moot is where he calls the model of reality-reflected identity on Facebook incorrect, which comes off as essentialist. Imagine if Facebook at the start tells you to choose any name of your liking. On a social network, how effective would the content that you'd rather post under a pseudonym be? The idea is that without Facebook, the share-ability of such content would be diminished. So my argument, admittedly unclear in the post, is that pseudonymity and anonymity actually derive their audience from the effects of rigidly reflected identities--but if you throw out the strictness that Facebook imposes entirely, on Facebook in particular, your audience size dries up considerably. People feel comfortable SHARING from a point of forced identity, but their will to EXPRESS themselves is most manifest in anonymity and pseudonymity. Expression without an audience is almost meaningless. It's a foundational issue.

Reddit seems to be doing pretty well... and they grow every day. "Sure" I hear you say, "they are a pittance compared to facebook", but really, what out there isn't. And Reddit, unlike Facebook for most of it's existence, has had serious competition. (I don't consider MySpace to be FB competition, since really the migration to FB began pretty much as soon as FB opened up to full public consumption).

Just a data point in the other direction.

I mention Reddit and in the post. I remark that it has to do with autobiographical memory, which is a very postmodern force. But it would have a hard time gaining a userbase if something like Facebook and Myspace had never existed. The latter bring the userbase to the Internet in the first place, where Reddit is a secondary outcome that could not have possibly gained its userbase without the effects of a social network (aka people posting reddit links on Facebook).

The web existed prior to Facebook. You seem to be arguing that Facebook's very existence is the reason that other sites on the web can even exist, which seems to fly in the face of the history of the web.

I am indeed arguing that Facebook's very existence and the effect it had, insofar as it greased the wheel of Internet use, is a huge part of why Reddit can exist at the scale it does. Reddit is a better-organized web forum, which are not new, and maybe by its own design merit does it succeed. This, I do not argue with. But I do not think it could exist at its current or anywhere-near-comparable scale and level of success without the social network effect.

Unfortunately your theory is silly and doesn't line up with the demographic studies that have been done.

No doubt you could find some interesting examples or some specific subgroups (my guess: the farmville playing middle aged mother on facebook with little technical aptitude, which is not an insignificant demographic) that have been pulled onto the net by facebook.

The numbers just don't show the kind of massive effect that you seem to be promoting here. It's hard to overestimate facebook's effect, it's a giant. But by saying that it's pulling up the entire rest of the internet you actually managed to do it.

What on earth is this theory based on?

Most of Reddit's user base is from Digg, you could say that as soon as Digg's user base started to build, Reddit's did.

You make it sound like social networking has always ruled the internet, but the line between the internet and social networking was blurred only recently, and wasn't blurred during the creation of thefacebook, and Digg, and arguably wasn't blurred during their rises to fame.

I also haven't heard of much links from Reddit being posted onto Facebook nor seen it at all. In my experience most link sharing for Reddit is done between friends in all sorts of context, which may include but isn't limited to Facebook.

I can understand having closed networks of friends on the internet, I enjoy the convenience of this every day, but to not have my real name plastered all over the internet is an even bigger blessing. Anonymity is powerful on the internet because instead of your identity & reputation coming from your name, they come from your idea that you put on the internet.

People are biased to be more agreeable and acceptable of ideas coming from people they respect (ex. Steve Jobs), and they don't tend to think about the entire spectrum of said idea if it comes from that respected person. In other words, they are more biased on average to think about the good of the idea rather then the bad. This means that they are judging the idea based on the person, rather then the idea based on the idea.

The problem with an open social network that envelopes the entirety of the web (Facebook is trying to do this), is that my choice of participating in society by being on Facebook and communicating on a daily basis will all my friends suddenly becomes a very dangerous choice. Now, not only am I selling out all the information that I pass on to my friends, I am now selling out (almost) everything I do on the internet, whether or not I'm logged into Facebook or not.

On a more extreme side are websites that force you to log into Facebook Connect to use their site, so they can gather more information about you. My choice to participate with my large network of friends becomes even more dangerous, as I now have to give out even more information to more companies to use most of the features that said Facebook Connect site has.

Not only that, but the ideas I post on said site are suddenly linked to my name forever, so some employer may deny me a job now because I think that Linux is overrated, or the iPad is a good product, or Steve Balmer is a shitty CEO.

---[This is a long specific example, you can just skip down to the dotted lines if you hate reading and hate bunnies.]---

Let's take this one step further though, so say I'm at some bar and I meet some chick named Betty that I think is really interesting and cool, and we exchange full names so we can find each other on Facebook. Everything is looking real good, I mean really good, we're going to see that new awesome comedy that is coming out about that guy who gets cancer.

But wait! As it turns out, Betty decided to go check out what I've posted on the internet by searching "(Full Name)", and she sees all these sites that I've posted on that have forced me to use Facebook Connect. Well, as it turns out I think extreme feminists are absolute lunatics who are more about female rights then equal rights, and it also turns out that I like to get wasted on Saturday nights when I'm surfing the internet, so what she finds is me shitting all over some bat shit crusader on (some Facebook Connect site), and I'm cursing all around being a dick. (Everyone is a dick some of the time, the internet just makes this eternal)

So she finds this post of me being a dick, misreads into it, and decides I'm some chauvinistic bastard, and then cancels the date raging about me publicly on Facebook. (Like I said before about being a dick). Well, I'm fucked out of a date, and if some guy searches up about Betty and sees that she raged about some dude publicly over the internet he might cancel that date.

---[Start reading again here if you hate reading and hate bunnies.]---

Now, this example is really shitting into the wind, but everything on the internet is recorded, cached, and we don't have access to delete everything on it. People will misread into that information, and other people will buyout and abuse this information despite what a policy may say (if there even is a policy). Even worse is that Facebook 'deactivates' your account at your request but keeps all the info on you to monetize. This isn't limited to Facebook either, just go look at Google Analytics and how useful Google Plus is to it. This doesn't even touch onto the possibility of Facebook 'interfacing' with the mafia, all someone has to do is pay the price that Facebook names for that information.

Reddit and Digg were successful independent of Facebook. Their scale of success was not. Prove me wrong.

As for your example, you dodged a bullet. That girl was not prepared for the level of Internets and self-incrimination that is you.

I'm not defending Facebook connect, nor am I defending data collection based on rigid identity. Instead, I'm defending the fact that the existence of Facebook grew the Internet and the numbers of people comfortable with using the Internet.

Let's say that Facebook is Costco and your pen-name-using websites are a mom&pop grocery store a few miles away from it. Costco's strategy is to build their stores in places that aren't so populated at first, and then attract business by providing the incentive for urbanization in the area. This is actually how Costco chooses to locate. They have a lasting impact on the area, and drive urbanization, in the same way Facebook drives adoption of web technologies. Your mom&pop store will receive more customers with Costco there than with Costco not there (and with just an order of magnitude less residents resulting). Facebook/Costco provides a service of convenience and necessity for the masses, while the mom&pop chain falls under a niche market with its own costs/benefits. Nonetheless, the mom&pop shop (Reddit) will benefit with the Costco (Facebook) existing in the same landscape.

I like challenging people like you because then I end up learning a lot of semi-interesting things like how Costco picks their locations.

I can't deny that Facebook has contributed to the growth of the internet, but I very strongly think that if Facebook didn't exist that the internet would've grown just as large in just as much time. Something else would've filled the hole that no Facebook would've had.

In hindsight I thought you were saying that Facebook had a very direct effect on the size of the user base for (say) Reddit, and tried to argue against it with a post probably too big for most people's egos, but hearing this example clears things up for what you meant in your first post.

My example was very much shitting in the wind too, sometimes I get carried away writing and things turn into mini-stories.

Jesus man, I'm very interested in this topic yet I still had a terrible time working through that brain dump. Superfluous acronyms, overly verbose, excerpts from (egads!) your undergrad papers! What the hell, man. Are you trying to appear smart for your professor or are you trying to persuade nerds with ADD? It can't be both.

Sorry, naner. When I try to be precise about things and not essentialize, it does require some amount of padding with jargon (pertaining to specificity) which would otherwise be taken as bullshit-like if not read by the fielded eye. What I try to do is stay away from generalizing and making indefensible claims. Next time, I'll stick with graphs, which is how I formulate my ideas and relate different social forces in the first place. To be dry: I wanted to be as accurate as possible, but it clouded all meaning.

Yeah. Me too. I found it painful to read.

Gosh that was a longwinded technical article.

All this talk about real identity on the web is a cover for the only real issue. Corporations can track, market to, and monetize what they learn about you more effectively with real id policies for internet use. Governments can track, monitor and control you more effectively with real id policies for internet use. The end.

I had trouble following the train of thought in this article; it may be too "stream of consciousness" for this particular audience. While this may be a problem between my keyboard and chair, I do not generally find HN articles hard to follow.

After reading and responding to the comments, I want to add an overall, more clear message:

The argument is that without rigid identity on the web, anonymity and pen names could not really take off and receive audience. Many individuals' first encounter with the Internet and any web communities is with Facebook, and this is because these people would not feel comfortable starting out on a place like Reddit for 4chan. For this reason, rigid identity is a necessary foundation for the usefulness of pen names and anonymity. Moot's argument that pen names are the way to go is flawed insofar as it undermines the "necessary evil" of rigid identity, which is a natural, socially evolved stepping stone for anonymity's value.

Without people going online and possessing monuments to themselves (facebook profiles) in a way they feel comfortable and secure in, anything posted online (including content under pen names) is in aggregate less valuable. Rigid identity is a necessary characteristic of social media content which can result in inexperienced web users taking the plunge to explore the rest of the less-rigid web.

Anonymous communities existed before rigid identity on the web. Those anonymous communities clearly provided some kind of value to their members and, thusly, must be considered useful.

How, then, can you argue that rigid identity is a necessary foundation for the usefulness of pen names and anonymity?

Further, I find your claim that men didn't have an identity prior to the advent of leisure time, frankly, extraordinary and, as such, the claim requires extraordinary evidence. Can you provide such evidence? Hell, even the argument that nomads don't engage in leisure time seems dubious. Wild animals have leisure time.

Something on the web has more value when it is viewed by more individuals than otherwise, correct? Early anonymous communities did provide some kind of value to their members, but they comparatively provide more value today when more individuals are present.

The problem when talking about social science is that everything is relational/relative. Rigid identity is necessary as a foundation for the MASSIVE (modern-day scale) usefulness of pen names and anonymity. It is not necessary for the smaller audience, but for the larger one which is online and present which we take for granted, it is necessary. Wild animals are often always looking for food. The claim of no-identity-before-statehood is, as stated, very, very relative, and I even wrote that this contrasts with identity as we know it today. The point is that identity did not matter when nobody had anything to do with themselves through it. Aristocrats, as written, are the exception due to their privilege of free time and surplus. The identity of a man who does one thing out of survival necessity is orders of magnitude less complex than the identity of a man who does several things and prides himself on all of them, and continuously has the option of re-defining himself.

Moreover, I have to admit that the assumption of no identity before the Industrial Revolution is something I studied in the entirety of two social geography courses dealing with how context defines the modern imaginary (as everything is only imagined with us).

I think you need to be much clearer about the exceptions to your theory, otherwise it's far too easy to refute by example.

I'd guess that most people on HN have been online since before Facebook was a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eye, and long since before it became popular. They created massive amounts of content, both long-lasting and ephemeral, and did so without the benefit of a Facebook profile. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that they had proto-Facebook profiles, or 'home pages' as they were known, and these served the same basic purpose. I don't think that a home page is a proto-Facebook profile, and I think that this refutes your argument that a profile or substitute profile is a necessary precondition for taking part in online discussion.

Almost every online interaction requires some kind of identity. IRC nicknames, handles or usernames on most websites, the contents of your sig on Usenet or mailing lists; these are all used to identify individuals. But there's no sense in which these need to be 'real' names, or that these different identities need to be correlated across different online social spaces. Plenty of ordinary people used AOL chat years ago without needing a rigid identity as a stepping stone. There might be a case that extremely socially conservative people ('settlers' in 'values modes' theory [1]) might need to feel that they're part of a community of 'real' people in order to interact online, and it's notable that the groups most upset at G+'s 'real names' policy were those least socially conservative, but the causality is tricky here. Either way, I don't think your argument holds up as anything close to a universal argument.

[1] http://www.cultdyn.co.uk/valuesmodes.html - I don't claim this is at all factual, but it's useful in the context of analysing how groups adopt technology differently

Both Moot and the author are correct.

It is well accepted that anonymity brings out the worst in people (the author has said so himself). It is also understood that context guides behaviours. For example, one might be more disinhibited on a tropical holiday. Another example is footballers behaving badly on tours. Another one is the unbelievable atrocities soldiers commit away from their home "context".

Moot's thesis is that people become interesting when you provide them a different context, while the author is saying that it is far healthier to have one well integrated identity.

To connect the dots here: I think both Moot and I employ a sort of essentialist rhetoric to get attention, the same way you would write something enormously more controversial under a pen name. A more strict interpretation of Moot's argument is that Facebook should be filled with pen names, as people need to be creative instead of simply informative, and that rigidity kills creativity. A strict interpretation of my argument is just as you said, but also that the well integrated identity comes before anonymity before anonymity may become useful / audienced. Moot's simple championing of anonymity misses the point that you need an audience first, which is gathered by putting people in a position where they can willingly be exposed to its content. It's the same as why farmville isn't 100% evil: it brings people to the web who otherwise would never be there, and acts as a positive externality on all other web sub-industries.

> [Autobiographical memory] might be boosted by anonymity and pseudonyms, as a way to pull down barriers to risky behavior, but anonymity and pseudonyms do much less for aggregate [utility per person] than postmodern, perceivably rigid reflections of reality on Facebook do.

There's a lot here about self-gratification through performative identity, but nothing about the value society derives from the unflinching evaluation of unpopular ideas. I find this to be nearly absent in "this will go on your permanent record" oriented venues, which in turn is why I find those all but useless. It's reception and counters to my arguments that I value; what I write would be anonymous (and on slashdot it was) if a dissociated pseudonym weren't required.

Why is he capitalizing moot's name? Is it just to be rude?

I did not mention the name Christopher Poole anywhere. Capitalizing on his pen name was within his argument's wishes.

Capitalizing, not capitalizing on. As in spelling with a capital M, rather than a lower case m.

Key points:

Identity refers to how we reference ourselves, primarily in relation to relationships, experiences, and possessions.

What is your basis for this assertion?

Identity comes from the concept of identification/classification. These are notions which evolved with modernism in Western society, or the ability to measure things exactly for the sake of predicting and knowing. There is no exact meaning for identity due to its elusive nature, as its meaning belongs to the fluid individual. My post presumes the definition, and yes, that makes it just an assertion.

Well, your entire paper hinges on a definition of identity that is completely internal, yet your measurements are external.

I am amazed that someone would write so much so thoroughly yet completely miss the point that some people don't give a damn about UPP or identity. Want to know what my reputation is? Too bad, it doesn't exist. Excepting the handful of close, personal friends, everyone who communicates with me is forced to judge me based purely on the merits of what I am saying, and not any sort of accumulated respect.

That's exactly the way I like it, because it's honest. If I say something stupid, I want people to say it's stupid. If I say something intelligent, I want them to say it's intelligent. The concept that I would be dishonest or hold my tongue instead of saying exactly what I thought for fear of what the listener would think of me is little better than lying to their face. The world would be a healthier place if everyone was called out on their stupidity, every time, by everyone there.

Anonymity enables honesty. Rigid identities are for people who are afraid of what they might hear if there was nothing protecting them from the truth of other peoples' thoughts.

Do you think this comment is the most ignorant, idiotic thing you've read today? Then tell me so, without being influenced by who I am, or dissuaded by anything I might do or think in the future. I welcome your honest opinion, for I know it is based purely on what I have said.

I don't think you are wrong in your overall point. My post was an analysis of the social evolution of self-expression. That was its direction. Your points relate to the actual utility of having no identity. The merits of your points (while anonymous) exist, but I would argue that they could not exist if not for the experiences derived under a rigid identity, perhaps not even without the experiences derived from having an identity on the web anywhere. How do you know that you care about identity or UPP or not if you did not experience both the "have" and "have not" have not at some point? Your opinion comes out of the in-between, and knowing both ways.

Edit: upvote for your throwaway, new account to prove your point. I imagine it would not have preceded a real account that you care about.

I think you wrote an article that kind of ignored the real point of controversy, which is whether UPP is actually valuable. Does having a rigid identity tend to magnify the reactions of people to the things you do an say? Yes, absolutely. Your article almost wholly pertains to arguing that it does, but that's not what people would disagree with you about. They would disagree on whether UPP is desirable at all. As far as I can tell from your definition of UPP, it's little more than an accumulated distortion of logical merit based on superficial characteristics. The distortion may be to your material advantage, but I still do not see why it is desirable.

Edit: I don't actually have a "real" account. HN may not support anonymity, but signing up and posting doesn't require email confirmation, so I make a new account about every other article I choose to post a comment on.

Correct. I wrote a post which avoided controversy by analyzing the social evolution of identity instead of taking a stance on the issue which cannot be backed by a model. To make this relevant, I involved Moot's point and showed how it is moot when taken together with the model. Is UPP good or bad, desirable? In relation to who? The answer changes depending on who responds to the output of UPP. Personally, I find UPP desirable because it has the potential to shake things up. I'm a big fan of shaking things up, but not the extent where it removes foundations and collapses a working system.

Whether it is desirable would depend on your values and objectives. I fail to see why UPP is desirable to anyone except the person who wants more accolade for a particular statement or action than it actually deserves. I do not think that an admirable desire.

Your UPP is what enabled you to make an account just to respond to this thread. Maybe we're unclear on definitions here. UPP facilitates the desire to make comments whether read by anyone or not, because it is made so abundant by technology as to devalue it as social currency in the first place. Regardless, it adds or subtracts from the UPP of people who took the time to read it (namely my own), and caused a reaction at the expense of my own. It's a force and currency, not an issue.

You're ignoring something important: Talk is cheap, and listening is expensive. Judging only the merit of ideas is nice, but it is only applicable within a small community. Once you have more people than you can easily listen to (even on a cursory level), it becomes a search problem. I don't have time to seek and consider opinions from all 7 billion people on the planet whenever I want an opinion on anything — particularly the kind of large topics where I'd generally want someone else's opinion — so I will focus my attention on people I know to be helpful. If I can't identify you as somebody who might have something to say, most of the time you'll get mentally lumped in with the teeming masses who don't even have an informed opinion on the matter.

Doesn't that ignore the fact that it is possible to have a pseudoidentity? A handle? That is enough to support a reputation and hence to enable you to focus your 'attention on people I know to be helpful?'

Talk is cheap, and listening is expensive. Judging only the merit of ideas is nice, but it is only applicable within a small community.

Even in a small community attention can be expensive. I've worked with a number of developer groups. Within each I would eventually reach a point where people knew enough about me that I could ask what might initially seem a stupid question but often lead to some interesting discussion because I was trying to a) make sure I understood this or that assumption and b) see if some assumptions were just plain wrong.

And the group knew I wasn't just dense or playing games; I might be wrong about this or that, but I was sincere and likely had at least some insight to offer.

I'm sure there are various ways to get these same kinds of group discussion going but reputation saves a whole lot of time when trying to explore a counterintuitive idea.

Even in small groups people have lots to do, so having an "in" based on reputation is important.

BTW, I do share the OP's point about bluntness, and I've been fortunate to work with people who, after considering something I've suggested, would give a direct, matter-of-fact opinion.

But this may be another case where personal knowledge helps; most people respected each other well enough to understand that there's a difference between dumping on an idea and dumping on a person. The nice thing was that no one thought you stupid because you said or did stupid things (if your overall reputation was for general non-stupidity) and it made communication easier.

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