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February 16, 2006
Facebook defacement
It's a perpetual question when it comes to an online identity, as opposed to one's natural, everyday-life identity. Why are people's online identities so different from who they are (or try to be) in real life?
I have a problem with the idea of an "internet identity." What is this? Well, imagine knowing a friend, let's call him Bob, pretty well in real life: he's a docile, laid-back guy, friendly and well-mannered. Bob tries to maintain a B average, is active in a couple groups on campus, plays on a sports team, and calls his mom three times each week. Imagine finding Bob's Facebook/Livejournal/MySpace profile that claims he's a campus drunk, he goes to your school just because he plays a sport and gets financial aid, cheats and doesn't care, swears like a sailor, and could be considered racist. Surprising, isn't it?
The internet is not a private place to have a separate, "freer" identity. Posting on a blog, a livejournal, a message board, or even Facebook leaves an open door to one's real life. Evidently it's taking a lot of real life experience and trouble to get this through to some people.
Students at Syracuse University created a group to discuss their dislike of a teacher. The teacher is a graduate student at the university. Who has rights? Whose rights are violated? Are rights violated in allowing this activity or by disciplining the guilty parties? These questions are common concerning any incident that parallels this. However, I think the question that needs asked is, "who are these people, really?"
Michele Weldon, an assistant professor in Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, who has been criticized by students on the Internet, said that all universities are dealing with similar issues. “I think students and everyone else who blogs need to learn the lesson that you have an ethical responsibility not to intentionally and deliberate harm someone with words that you publish,” she said. “This is a cautionary tale that there is no such thing as privacy on the Web...”
- via insidehighered.com
I don't think that internet crimes like slander and whatnot have their place in the world. Maybe it's a naïve, but with the growth of technology and its expanding usage in life I don't think that people represent themselves very well in their "online" identities. My assumption in all this ranting is that people (mostly students) typically do themselves a disservice by creating ulterior identities that don't parallel with how they behave outside of their internet "communities."
I would venture to guess that the women who created this group "bashing" their teacher are not terrible people (I could be very wrong, though). More than likely, I think they were frustrated with their teacher and wanted to do something to express how they felt about her and her class, which led to the creation of the Facebook group.
Why create a Facebook group about such a thing? It's a public manifesto. Listing the groups you belong to in Facebook is an identity sketch. Who you are, what you like, who you associate with... it sums up a person before you know that person. And if you don't know that person, you might decide, based on that manufactured personality, whether or not to associate yourself with that person.
It's all the same, too. Facebook or any other online "community" that allows people to develop and define themselves through these means of listing groups, activities, preferences, etc. Of course a list of things is not enough to define a real person, but what if it contradicts who that person is in "real" life? What can be believed? How can anyone assume that the internet identity is not somehow tied to the real person?
It's the same idea with what happened at Syracuse: students sometimes use the internet's services for purely social reasons--building profiles and group memberships to establish themselves according to a social trend--and forget that nothing on the *ahem* World Wide Web is private. Anyone can look at pictures of you getting drunk or dressed as a hooker for Halloween. Anyone can see how you act online, and anyone that knows you well enough can see if it's different from how you behave in real life.
Why does the internet spawn so much dualism in people? I am not a psychologist and I won't try to be one, but this is a concern of mine. Trying to represent yourself online as you are in daily life might be difficult. What frightens me is the thought of a negative list of internet identity traits aligned with a person who identifies with those honestly and truly.
Posted by KarissaKilgore at February 16, 2006 8:33 AM
Comments
It's interesting, I was talking about this same sort of thing the other day at work. It was interesting to see the number of people posting pictures of themselves drunk on Facebook. Of course, if I were an RA I would be scanning Facebook all of the time, spotting the trouble students who are proud enough of their drinking to post it online, and giving those dorm rooms extra attention on my rounds.
I've never heard anyone say "That picture of you online with that Carona is awesome!"
Posted by: Mike Rubino at February 16, 2006 12:33 PM
Looks like you may have found your next column idea, Karissa. :)
Posted by: Amanda at February 16, 2006 3:03 PM