Anonymity on the Internet (Part 1)… The good, the bad, and the ugly
When I walk into the room where my 8 year old son plays games on the Internet, and take a short glimpse at his screen, I feel uneasy deep in my stomach. I tried to understand why. Is it the voices of these kids he is playing online with? Is it because some of these voices actually sound more rough or older than my son’s, although I admit I don’t know how much older? Or is it that non-stopping stream of notifications about friend requests, friends joining, friends leaving, etc., with meaningless user identities?
Meaningless identities or anonymous identities for users playing online with my son, that must be it! Who are these kids? are they trustworthy? are they really kids? are they just having fun playing a multi-user game, or are they plotting to put my young boy in harms way — e.g., stalking, meeting physically, kidnapping — God forbid?
Wouldn’t I feel safer for my kid, if instead of these meaningless identities, the real names of these users and their ages were displayed? More importantly, if I could believe such info about the users as authentic, not fake!
Fake identities, that sounds more accurate than anonymous identities. All this user info can be fake. Anyone can choose any ID and fill a form specifying any birth date, any address or vicinity, any skin color, nationality, even physical appearance can be faked by uploading any photo, and the account is opened at the click of a button.
In my opinion, this is the ugliest part of anonymity on the Internet — subjecting minors, and vulnerable individuals of any age, to possibility of exploitation.
Anonymous identities, or fake identities, stand behind and inflame the common phenomenon of fake news, which explodes on the Internet today, and we all suffer from its bad consequences in different areas, such as politics, economy, and society.
The 2016 US presidential election was not long ago, where we witnessed one of the epochs of large scale fake news on the Internet and social media. Regardless of the side you align yourself with politically, you were subjected to bombardment by lies disguised in the form of news. These lies were perpetuated and exacerbated by the lack of traceability of those mediating and propagating them, not to mention those making them up, as they all hid behind “anonymous” identities on the different social media platforms. These were meaningless identities that represented fake personas that never existed in real life. These personas were sometimes backed in real life by computer AI programs, and often by real humans disguised and emboldened to lie and propagate deception because of the mere fact that their real identities are hidden.
Someone wearing a mask is emboldened to do actions they may never do when people around them can identify them and know who they really are, where they live, where they work, who they have relationships with, and what rule of law and moral conduct they claim to respect and uphold, in public.
After all, why do we have photo IDs for driving, traveling, entering work places, and even subscribing to sports or social clubs? Why can’t we just make up any profile in a few minutes, give it a fancy name, and immediately get in, the same way we get in everywhere on the Internet and social media? Well, it is common sense to consider it unsafe to let anyone in anywhere without proper identification, and validation of the identifiction. This is universally true in the real world, but for some reason we play by a different rule in virtual places on the Internet, where everyone can get in anywhere. All it takes is a few clicks to create a suitable profile with the “right” attributes, to be let in, that is in the case where the web site or application is really picky. Most of them are not. Almost all of them will not reliably check to make sure you entered correct information in your profile. They may merely check that you entered information aligned with what they want to hear from you, like for example a birth date after a certain year. Is it really your birth date? That’s a whole different question beyond the scope of the application or web site!
Fake news, lies, unreal experiences, rude overly aggressive argumentation, and immoral stories and encounters, are the bad harvest of anonymous identities on the Internet.
People often confuse privacy with anonymity. This is a big misconception. While the two concepts are related, yet the former is an end goal in itself and is not to be compromised, while the latter is one of multiple means to an end.
Not tracking who you are when you browse Web content, or when you use an online maps application, like Google Maps for example, is desired in order to protect your privacy. However using an anonymous identity or a fake profile to go around the fact that certain web sites and online applications store your private browsing information, without your consent — perhaps beyond uncareful acceptance of the fine print in the license agreement — is a consequence of that undesired behavior of these sites. Admittedly it is a good benefit for anonymity, yet it is not the only way to safely surf the Web while maintaining your privacy. One should be able to maintain both their privacy and identity while accessing the Internet. Compromising on the true identity side, or having to live with multiple identities online, should not be the solution to the problem of stalkers or providers craving user private data. In fact, this option ought to be scratched off the list of acceptable solutions to the privacy problem.
The good thing about anonymity on the Internet is that it protects the privacy of the user. However, confusing privacy with anonymity, or assuming that privacy can be achieved only through anonymity, is a main cause for the ugly and bad consequences discussed earlier in this article.
In Summary, using anonymous identities or fake profiles is a problem which causes a lot of the bad and ugly behaviors we see on the Internet and in social media applications today. It helps in protecting the privacy of the user, but other means should be explored, and devised, for that cause.
It is a multi-faceted problem, which involves at minimum legislative, technical, and ethical dimensions to address.
Legislations should prevent service providers from invading users’ privacy. Europe has recently introduced stringent data privacy laws and regulations, known as GDPR. Other countries should follow suit. Harsh fines and user compensation should be imposed on application and service providers who violate privacy regulations, and track individual user activities without their explicit consent.
Besides laws and regulations, which protect users’ privacy and software/provider companies’ ability to gather anonymized data to improve their solutions and services, there is a need for technical enforcement of an Internet-wide digital solution for identity issuance and verification by a trusted third party, who can bridge the gap between real and virtual identities. The trusted third party offers its services to application and service providers, as well as to end users. This approach should guarantee that the user’s real identity is used at the time of subscribing to or purchasing a service or app, that the service or app provider sees only an anonymous identity for that user, and that other users interacting with the subject user have the ability to view his/her real validated identity. It should also provide for protection against hackers seeking to steal identities.
Finally, software developers have a big ethical responsibility lying upon their shoulders, to enforce the use of real identities, and verification of such identities and claims implied by them.
Users should be able to maintain both their privacy and true identity while accessing Internet applications and services. Other users have the right to know the real identity of who they are interacting with.
In closing, a revolution is needed, in the way identities are handled over the Internet. This topic needs more discussion in follow on posts, to give it its right level of depth in coverage.
Thank you for reading. If this article resonates with you, check out part 2 of this series.
