Is Anonymity Really Necessary?

@colette: On the one hand, I guess you thought I was arguing with you and/or saying that anonymity is a bad thing and should be abolished. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I was just pointing out my situation as something for people to consider.

On the other hand, it happens that I don't agree with your last post:

As Chip pointed out, many of the problems that people feel the need for anonymity to defend against are caused by anonymity in others. Thus, someone could be wanting to eliminate those problems in a hypothetical future while defending against them in the actual present. They would prefer if nobody had total anonymity, but as long as there is a lack of accountability then they have to play along.

If everyone were to reveal their real life details do you think that would stop people from being a-holes? I don't think so. So what else do we gain by releasing our real life details besides being fodder for spammers, marketers, stalkers, ID thieves? Here we are getting all worked out about a company like Aristotle will get all of our personal data to use for their marketing, demographic studies, whatever and now you want to give them... and every other unscrupulous company our information on a silver platter? You give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

Well anyone can pull up our information on the internet or in the phonebook. Can you find me right now? No you can't and I like it that way.

When you talk of accountability, what kind of accountability are you talking about? Do you mean that if Puffy Odoodle here starts bad mouthing you that you will know they are John Milton in Dover, Mass. and you can go over to their house and deliver a righteous beating?

My point is that the best outcome of revealing our identities online here in SL is people will be less likely to grief and generally be less of an a-hole. The worst outcome would be spamming, marketing, id thievery, stalking, interstate threats, assault, libel, slander, etc...

My last post wasn't aimed at you beyond the part that you are okay with people keeping their privacy but you like to talk about RL stuff.

The point made that you quoted definitely was just aimed at the general discussion.

I think residents definitely should if they choose it have total privacy regarding other residents.
--------------------------


Heres some possibilities.


*People think they should be allowed to be guarded up to X, so everyone else should do the same?

Thats one idea. Its at least consistent.

*People think they should be allowed to be guarded up to X+1, but everyone else should only be allowed to be guarded to up to X.

Thats hypocritical.

*People think that they should be allowed to be guarded, but other people shouldnt be.

thats definitely hypocritical.

*People think they should be allowed to be guarded, but people in business shouldn't be.

Well okay, this is at least tied to losing money. If you do this though you couldn't tie alts together. Since then they couldn't have any privacy in their personal stuff.


*People think that they should be allowed to be guarded to whatever point, so they don't have a place telling others how guarded they should allowed to be.

That would be how I feel about it.

Thats a good point, the inclusion of "accountability" could just lead to shifting of who gets mistreated.


Its one thing to say "I want to sue X, LL who is X IRL?"

And another to say "I wonder who X is IRL, *Open profile on X*"

LL is at least liable if they divulge your information without cause.

I dont think it should be neccesary to reveal your RL identity to people you meet in SL either.

I just don't see Anonymity (or lack thereof) as a black or white issue. The ultimate state of affairs that I think is most needed is more a shade of grey - a grey that preserves Accountability.

I see some interesting parallells here with the Milgram experiment, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

(URL here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment)

While this study focused on obiedience, I wonder just how much anonymity played a role in its effects. The 'Teacher' obeys the 'Experimenter', and delivers painful electric shocks to the 'Learner'. Yet the 'Teacher' in this experiment was anonymous to that 'Learner' (and consequently felt no 'accountability').

I'm curious how differently that experiment would have played out had those teachers and learners been face to face with one another.

Why is it necessary to reveal your RL info? It shouldn't be and it's not. Not for SL or any other on-line game. This is the only game where they're trying to implement that stupid verification system. A system no one in sl should adhere to.

There are so many ways you can get screwed by revealing your personal data. And it has nothing to do with paranoia, it has to do with being cautious.

Remember that newbie who walked up to you naked with a giant malformed penis? The one who asked to have sex with you even though he's just a day old? Now imagine that he now has all of your real life info.

There is a significant difference between _anonymity_ and _pseudonymity_.

If someone is anonymous you don't know who you're talking to at all. If someone is pseudonymous you have a connection between things they said and did in a limited scope, but not outside of that scope.

Avatar identities are, mostly, opt-in pseudonyms (admittedly someone could give their password away and share an account, but that's not that common). Other pieces of personal information such as your IP address, SSN and, for that matter, your "real name", are also pseudonyms, with different scopes and different possible exclusions. They are all reference points for certain subsets of all of the information about _you_.

"Real names" are just significant in that they are the identifying tokens that we use most of the time, and knowing that allows a lot of cross-referencing, as well as being generally the standard token for interaction with the government. But even that isn't absolutely the case - legally speaking I can use any name I like in the UK for any purpose, there's actually no such thing as a "legal name".

Okay I also don't see the "its not that big a threat" thing either

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

*How many know people who have been killed in car crashes?

I do, thus I'm very careful when I drive.

*How many know people who have died in plane crashes?

I do, thus I don't use airlines with bad maintenance reputations.

*How many know people who have been mugged?

I do, thus I'm very careful in dangerous areas.

*How many know people who have been murdered?

I do, thus I know its something to be concerned over.

*How many know people who have been stalked because of their involvement with others on the net?

I do, thus I'm careful what i tell people online.

*How many know people who have been a victim of identity theft?

I do thus I'm careful where I use my credit card, how long my mail sits out, etc.

I came to SL for an escape from RL, fantasy, and yes maybe some fringe experiences. My occupation causes me some degree of public visibility, so annonimity is necessary. I'm not interested in an RL contact from SL. If some want that information available optionally, that's fine, but if it became a requirement, then no thank you.

Yes - I think this is spot on. I am not a dolphin in RL, but that is about as far as i will go in releasing my identity, or anything personal about myself.



That is some disclosure! I take it you have no plans on going back into that job!

well that my no preconceived notion on the topic

No, I'm not talking about enabling vigilantism. I'm talking about if you're Scammy McGrieferton in SL who's infamous for ruining everyone else's fun, stealing intellectual property, defrauding people of their money, and putting screaming particle spammers on everyone's land, I think it would be a wonderful thing if there were real world repurcussions for being such a flaming douchebag, like being denied the ability to sign up for other MMOs, and maybe even being passed over for employment.

The employment issue has already been brought up in the negative context of being denied employment because you engage in harmless activities that are frowned upon by "polite" society. My take on that is that "polite" society will always wield undue power to cause you shame and embarassment precisely because people are unwilling to stand up and defend the things they enjoy and that harm none.

If the reason someone doesn't think there shouldn't be any anonymity is because they hate people spamming them with South Park Particle streams...

They really need to get a life.

Ban them from your land and move on already.

This is an important distinction.

IMHO, SL should definitely allow anonymity inworld, even if THEY can trace our identity in case of problems.

I would also be fine with SL requiring identity (e.g., payment info on file) for all avs, but I can understand that there are many who wouldn't, for worry about LL being hacked or not trusting LL to behave responsibly with the entrusted information. (Heck, I know one guy who won't even get a credit card ...)

Frankly, I think SL would be best if LL did require payment verification. That way, alts for griefing would be far harder to obtain, but it wouldn't block most other kinds of alts, e.g., role playing, "slipping out", or simply having separate identities inworld.

The problem is they come back as another alt. They can keep this up nearly ad-infinitum, can't they? Or is there some limit on the number of alts?

Yes I agree too. The provider of the service should know who we are. But what we choose to disclose to each other should be exactly that. Our choice.

If you're engaging in things you wouldn't be willing to stand up and defend as your real world self it's rather hypocritical to claim it's defensible. That's not a judgment that anything is or isn't, per se, just to say that by being unwilling to defend something in the real world you cede all the power to make that judgment to others. Since it's often the fear of being judged by others that makes people want to be anonymous to begin with, I find it ironic. It is precisely that fear that gives their judgment power.

I understand that is a problem

It is no reason someone's real life name should get plastered on their profile.

I can definitely understand LL needing RL info, of course.

Anonymity is GREAT!

It's wonderful to log into a McDonalds and not instantly be pelted with two dozen text messages the moment people see I am available "in-(RL)-world"!

It's a massive relief not to be Desmond Shang in meatspace to everyone... I love my anonymity as one of 100 million boring suburban dads with a minivan.

"Dress like a SL noob day" in a bland tee shirt, jeans and cruddy shoes is my favourite! We all look the same...



Oh, wait... did you mean anonymity online?

Howsoever would one *do* that? My typing eccentricities, voiceprint, quirky flying and behaviour can be spotted no matter what form I take on...

Would I join a community on line that required RL identities to used.
There was a time I would not given much thought about this until what happened to a friend came up.

My friend was proud of what he did and didn't mind telling people where he lived.
One night on the IRC he was arguing politics with this woman from Maine.
It appears she did not care for his brand of politics and decided she was going to tell him
in person. Some how this person tracked him down and then traveled from her home in Maine to Florida. He was quite surprised to find this irate woman on his front porch.
Three police cars later and a restraining order he got his life back.

The answer to your question is a resounding no!

No thanks, too many nut jobs out there to deal with. The next time you boot a griefer from your land and he thinks "I will I just look up Joe Blow and give it to him"
Do you want to deal with some idiot on your door step or worse?

In the real world I often chat and interact with people who know nothing more than my face and perhaps my first name. Why would should the online world be any different?
If I want you to know I will tell you that applies to the internet and the real world.

Rox

It'd help if we could ban from our land via it the info LL gets. We'd never see, just tick a little box that says, ban alts or something.

But the verification system that LL has now is a joke, not to mention a totally different topic.

I am not stating that its defensible.

Im stating that the punishment is harsher than the crime.

Spamming South Park particles should not equal being barred from employment for example.

Nor should it mean someone shouldn't be able to go elsewhere after being banned from SL.

Should someone that got banned for Ageplay never be allowed to get credit?

Should a Gorean sex slave in SL never be allowed to adopt children IRL?

Great in theory, but we all know how it works in the Real World. I am not going to risk my livelihood for Second life or any other thing I do for recreation, nor should I. Sometimes there just is no defense against small minds, and erroneous perceptions. My use of SL has no requirement that I know anything about people's real lives, what ever information that is exchanged is purely incidental.

I don't know what you mean; each and every one of your alts is entirely unique and impossible to connect to any of the others...

...it isn't too hard in general to connect two accounts if you know what you're doing, no. I have been a moderator on another board for quite a while and find that, when it actually comes to looking around and studying people's posts and obsessed topics it's a lot easier than is generally thought, even if they are using proxies and trying to change their behaviour (I find the people who use the _same_ proxy for both accounts and then wonder how they were tracked down by their IP particularly funny).

On the other hand, except by some sort of automatic statistical analysis of your control "fist" as soon as you start to move and type, it's a bit hard to do that automatically, and that is the only thing that would help the Travises of this world - analysing the behaviour of a griefer to determine that they are a griefer is even less of a challenge, it's experiencing it that is the problem.