Importance Of Anonymity In Cyberspace

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ANONYMITY: A POSSIBILTY IN CYBERSPACE
Prajwal F D’souza, 4NM14EC100, +91 7899032542, prajwal.dsouza14@gmail.com

Abstract: This article focuses on the areas of anonymity in cyberspace, as to why people prefer anonymity and how it affects their behaviour when they’re online. Also highlighted are the certain aspects of social behaviour that are a byproduct anonymity because of which people gain a certain form of freedom of speech upon masking their identity, and how this brings out both socially desirable and undesirable outcomes. Also discussed is why authorities and certain organizations prove to be a threat to the future of anonymity.

Keywords: Anonymity, identity, self-representation, privacy, socialization.

Introduction: Anonymity …show more content…

Anonymity seems to lift people’s inhibitions and can lead to unusual acts of generosity, or on the other hand it may lead to misbehaviour and harmful acts. Those who use anonymity do so in order to reduce the social risks of holding a deferring viewpoint on popular topics such as feminism. They create a different persona online, one that is different from their real self. [1] They modify their own behaviour to manage presentations of their false identity to others often by falsification of personal information. Michael Callahan founded an anonymous social network for teens that has particularly seen many positive outcomes. In his own words, he says “In social media, at the forefront is your identity, and you have to tailor to that, and you have to be thinking cognitively about how things you post are going to be viewed, but not when it’s …show more content…

Examples of this behaviour include Intel and Microsoft, who monitor track their users without their knowledge. [6] Often, in doing so these companies violate their own privacy policies. Law enforcement officials also prefer some sort of traceable characteristics in pseudonymity, so as to apprehend a violator.

Discussion: Although anonymity on the web has had positive influences, it has it’s dark side as well. The creator of the anonymous social site 4chan, Christopher Poole mentions in a TED talk, “saying whatever you like is powerful, but doing whatever you like is crossing the line”. The border between what action constitutes to illegal and legal but offensive use of anonymity is a fine line.

From disruptive communication to pedophile contracts, there is a portion of the web that is so evil in intentions that it is appropriately named the Dark web. Here, everything from child pornography, black market sale of arms and ammunition, sale of fake identities, drug trafficking and money laundering, all funded by anonymous people with anonymous crypto-currencies. A whole underworld lies underneath what the general public actually sees. [4] The dark web is part of the deep web, which means it is not visible to search engines like Google, and needs special software like TOR to access

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