Last week, I discussed how the Arizona shooting incident impacted on the role of social media. The suspect, Jared Lee Loughner’s unusual behaviors can be seen on his MySpace and YouTube pages, such as expressing his anger towards society, and sharing his political opinions with his friends and/or followers. As I read this week’s readings, I found interesting points that can be applied to Loughner revealing his personal information on social networking sites to how online identity is watched by others.
After the 911 attacks, government surveillance was dramatically increased to the United States. We know surveillance of online activities harms our freedom of expression, but it’s inevitable to want to prevent potential dangers on the web, such as fraud and identity theft. For example, people stalk one’s MySpace profile to get personal information then send a threat; 29,000 sex offenders joined MySpace according to July 2007 research (Rosen 2007).
Sometimes surveillance has positive aspects. These days, many people are voluntarily engaged in online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with friends. One of the reasons for joining online communities is to get social support, which reduces depression from stress (LaRose et al. 2001). For example, Thordora twitted a message to show her stress caused from her 3 year old baby crying all day, so she asked her followers if she smothered her baby would it be a crime. This led me to believe that she needed social support to reduce her depression. After she twitted, her followers reported the incident to police, and they actually visited her to make sure the baby was safe. After police visited, Thordora wrote cynical remarks such as "Don't do any venting in public. Don't network. Don't show anything LESS than perfect bliss…” (Weeks 2009). Weeks also mentions that, unlike Thordora, some people call for help by posting online. I think Loughner, who expressed his willingness to commit suicide, called for help. Loughner posted a photo of his automatic handgun, and a message saying "Goodbye, dear friends...Please don't be mad at me", which was considered as a suicide note (BBC News).
Sometimes police also post surveillance footage of crimes on YouTube for criminal investigations. Whether your intention to post online is to get support or help, your posting may be under surveillance, which means you are being watched by other people “Even though people obviously communicate online with a specific audience in mind, e.g., their friends, the public nature of online social networking makes the information available to a much larger audience, potentially everyone with access to the Internet” (Albrechtslund 2008).
Then, why do people want to expose their online identities? I don’t know why people want to be watched by others, revealing their personal information online, and share it with unknown people. For this unanswered question, I joined Facebook and Twitter. I began a search for groups that catered to my interest, which is figure skating. I found figure skating celebrities, but I was shocked to discover the pages were actually fake, and created by people who remain anonymous. First, I thought the Facebook pages were created by fans to promote these stars. But after reading posts and comments, which spread wrong information, I got the feeling that they were people who wanted to have attention from others rather than just be fans. Luckily, I found Facebook and Twitter both allow users to report any fake pages, so I took action to report the pages; you can report the page as spam in Twitter (figure 1), or report the page as a fake profile in Facebook (figure 2). I liked Facebook better, since it offered more options to users for reporting. Choices for reporting profiles are: 1) fake profile impersonating a public figure or celebrity, 2) impersonating me or someone I know, and 3) does not represent a real person, or pretends to be a celebrity.
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| Figure 1. |
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| Figure 2. |
After the experience, I read our readings again and found that in order to get attention, and have status online people pretend to be a celebrity (Rosen 2007). Another reason to make a fake page is to get as many followers or fans as possible, and sell the page to the celebrity or related website “MySpace pages (and their related social networks) can be considered tangible assets. An advertisement for a MySpace Friend Adder Script promises 3,000 friend requests per day”, and claims that “If you have 150K friends, you can sell your account for at least $5000…” (Bigge 2006).
In conclusion, people commit crimes online, such as using a fake identity to get commercial benefits. Committing identity theft or privacy invasion, by joining online communities, is a negative way for surveillance to reveal identity. On the other hand, people join online communities, and create profiles whether it’s based on a true or false identity, in order to get positive aspect of surveillance, which is that they need social support from online friends. Also police can prevent and trace criminals through their own online surveillance.
References
Weeks, Linton (2009). Social Responsibility and the Web: A Drama Unfolds. 8 January 2009. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99094257
LaRose, R., M.S. Eastin and J. Gregg (2001). Reformulating the Internet Paradox: Social Cognitive Explanations of Internet Use and Depression. Journal of Online Behavior 1(2). http://www.behavior.net/JOB/v1n2/paradox.html
Albrechtslund, Anders (2008). Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance. First Monday 13(3). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2142/1949
Rosen, Christine (2007). Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. The New Atlantis 17, 15-31. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/virtual-friendship-and-the-new-narcissism
Bigge, Ryan (2006). The Cost of (Anti-) Social Networks: Identity, Agency and Neo-Luddites" First Monday 11(12). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1421/1339
"Arizona gunman' appeas in court." BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12145117
Your point about Thordora is a representation of "emotional expression" that cannot be accommodated in her real life, but can be poured freely through online media, such as blogs and SNSs. These are not something new, because there are black and white OCs. You may joined people who have interest in museum, sciences, maths, photography. While other people probably will more likely to join an adult site, bulimia,hacking- stalking, etc. These can be an interesting course to be consider to be opened at ICS Department, which probably I could called in "Netiqutte and Human Behavior".
ReplyDeleteEmotional expression online can also affect people on their real life situation. I remember, one of my friend cried because she doesn't understand the reason why a friend "unfriend" her from FB.
Another funny thing that I want to mention is about fake account. I think is not exactly fake, but probably will be suitable to be call as a different personality of people who have "the fake account". To obsessed by an artist, an individual can created a fake account of artist. One story that is real, a friend of mine mentioned that her friend has an account on FB for his dog. Can you imagine about that? But that's the part of OC too.
Responding to your comment: "This led me to believe that she needed social support to reduce her depression" about the twitter mom. I am not sure if that tweet was about depression, sounded more like frustration to me. But you are absolutely right, she could use some support.
ReplyDeleteAs a lot of mommies can attest to, sometimes the most calm, serene, happy moms get frustrated. Sometimes we have thoughts we are not proud of. These feelings are not out of the realm of the average mommy experience. All humans feel a wide range of emotions, frustration being one of them, motherhood does not make them magically go away.
Perhaps what she tweeted was inappropriate, and shocking to see written out. And perhaps erring on the side of caution and calling the authorities was warranted. But I am not sure if that is the "support" she needed. Perhaps all she needed was a girlfriend, sister, mother, friend to just say, "hang in there, it gets better, they all grow up eventually....all too fast...enjoy this time."
Thanks for letting me know the "report fake identities" function on these social network sites Song, and I can't remember how many times I read about something weird that came under a celebrity's name in "Weibo"(a chinese SNS that works like twitter) and was shock. Now I think your description of the commercial use can explain these situations. But it also made me think that if even the celebrities' identities can not be guaranteed true, how many of the "ordinary" people can we trust online?
ReplyDeleteAnd by fake information, I think there can be two kinds, either fake identities or fake messages that are spreading out. The former condition, as you said, can be brought about by economic interests or getting attention while the latter condition can be a little more complicated.
I don't really get the desire to populate your friends list with strangers either. Essentially, you're basically giving permission for complete strangers to stalk you for "+1" to your "friend" count. It also makes it very easy for things to be taken to the extreme because people don't really know you and can only interpret what you say in its literal form, like what happened to Thordora. I'm sure that with actual friends, most would call or visit her to make sure things were okay and not let it get out of hand.
ReplyDelete> After the experience, I read our readings again and found that in order to get attention, and have status online people pretend to be a celebrity (Rosen 2007).
ReplyDeleteThis statement about celebrity in Rosen's paper was very memorable. I'm not so sure Rosen's point supports the experiment where people use fack identities though.
Rosen mentioned that “elebrities don't need legions of MySpace friends to prove their importance. It's the rest of the population, seeking a form of parochial celebrity, that does”, and “the impulse to collect as many 'friends' as possible on a MySpace page is not an expression of the human need for companionship, but of a different need no less profound and pressing: the need for status.”
It seems like Rosen was talking about people collecting attentions and online “friends” to improve their personal statuses, in a sense of real life statuses. So, facking identies and abusing the online community might not fall into this category. Those people mentioned in your experiment have their dark sides and untold reasons to conduct such actions, but they might not be seeking for the feeling of celebrity and improving status.
> Another reason to make a fake page is to get as many followers or fans as possible, and sell the page to the celebrity or related website “MySpace pages (and their related social networks) can be considered tangible assets.
I agree with this point. Those people are very likely driven by financial interests to conduct such illegal actions on online communities.
Song, thank you for sharing your expereince. I agree with HansomeAvatar - “Emotional expression online can also affect people on their real life situation”
ReplyDeleteThe most common and serious example of this is online bullying – in Korea, one celebrity committed suicide a few years ago, because she was accused of being related to another suicidal case, a few months earlier, by “people” online. In more detail, the cause of the first suicide was unknown but people online began to spread rumors that the celebrity caused the first person’s suicide. These rumors caused the celebrity to hang herself.
Whenever something like this happens, media talks about ‘Netiquette’, of course. But I’m not sure if it works. You can express whatever and however you want, while hiding who you are, and therefore escaping consequences. Who would care about ‘netiquette’ when they know they won’t be punished. I think people who really care about online morals and etiquette would not do such online bullying.
wow great post and i am agree that each picture have two side effect and this blog done the great job to make it clear in the mind of the reader so thanks for sharing this stuff..
ReplyDeletePrivate individuals should observe responsible use of online identity. We should all remember that our actions online can be used against us.
ReplyDelete