Why You Don’t Need to Hide Online Anymore...Or Do You?
Think back to your first computer. Was it a PC or a Mac? (Maybe it was a classic 8-bit Commodore 64, even an old Altair 8800, which you had to assemble at home.)
Mine was an an Apple IIc that I won in 5th grade through a district-wide school programming contest. At $3000, it was a mind-blowing possession for a 10 year old.
Early tech geeks like me might remember a time when everyone hid behind handles, or made-up user names. Anytime we chatted or shared tips on forums, we all used these to conceal our true identities. My handle was ‘Invoker’ on paintball forums and programming chat groups. (Yes, paintball.) For years and years, I was free from prying governments and identity thieves. The real Ryan Holmes was nowhere to be found on the Net.
Even when the consumer Internet emerged a decade later, anonymity and handles were still the standard.
How many usernames have you used for your various online accounts over the years?
But is all this paranoia and precaution still necessary? Has social media changed the way we think about anonymity?
How Social Media Killed Big Brother
The first place where I freely volunteered personal info to the public was LinkedIn, which launched in 2003. Here was a serious tool to connect you with colleagues and employers. Your name was your business card and nobody was going to call themselves Invoker on LinkedIn and expect to be taken seriously. So, for the first time, Ryan Holmes—the real person—took the plunge on the Internet. Looking back, those early LinkedIn days were a turning point.
The Internet was no longer an anonymous playground without consequences and social rules. This was big. And all of this was helped along, of course, by enormous improvements in security and encryption.
Credit Facebook with taking this concept a huge step farther. A few years back, Facebook boldly pioneered its real name policy and pseudonyms and the like were explicitly barred.
Social media has helped make online transparency mainstream, and all the benefits that go along with it, like increased accountability and civility. Think about all of those online comment forums, cesspools where the lowest common denominator hide behind handles, thriving on spewing out insults and engaging in meaningless disputes. Anonymity, unfortunately, can often be an excuse to bring out the worst in yourself and others.
Real names on online social networks foster stronger professional and personal communities that transcend computer screens. Volunteering real first and last names has actually made everyone feel safer—not less safe. You know exactly who you’re connecting with—not some sketchy virtual proxy—and can establish real, personal connections. Relationships made online now have real world implications.
Big Brother hasn’t swooped down to censor our thoughts. Quite the opposite—debate and dissent have flourished as the electronic curtain has been lifted.
A Word of Caution
Of course, a different set of concerns has surfaced about how much information we’re now volunteering on social networks and the long-term impact on privacy.
Online transparency is a double-edged sword that needs to be handled carefully. On the one hand, more information equals more useful services and more efficient transactions. The more completely you fill out your LinkedIn profile, for instance, the better you’re able to connect with colleagues and employers. The more you contribute and volunteer on Twitter, the richer your connections with your followers. On the other hand, it’s critical that we understand exactly what we’re revealing and who will be able to see it. Plain-language disclosures, as well as user education about privacy concerns, are both vital pieces of the equation.
Senior Communications Manager at Cleveland Clinic
11 年I also started out with an Apple IIc. :) I remember that Christmas morning very well, and my uncle's amusement a couple years later when he asked to see the manual only to find it still in the cellophane. Who neeeded manuals anyway?? We just learned by doing... Anyway, this is a great article and shows the shift in our comfort level with sharing information, myself included. But I also think we need to be careful that this more relaxed approach doesn't apply to our online accounts, etc. Compromised data seems to be more common than most of us realize.This article in Wired really made me think differently about user names and passwords so I wanted to pass it along: https://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/ff-mat-honan-password-hacker/
Individual & Family Services
11 年I found the article informative, we have to express caution in anything we do and much of what we say online. In all actuality its not very hard for people to get information these days, we all carry a virtual trail. As an online college grad we were taught online etiquette, the rules on how to communicate with others online, you always have to think about the receiving end. A message can be sent to an individual, or to millions of people once you push send it's out there. Now there's companies out there that will remove the information you've posted for a fee of course, I don't believe it can be done. I happen to be one of the millions of Americans on the job search and Social Networking or networking in general is now listed as a skill, if you don't have these skills your options are limited. I believe the more you network the less privacy you have. I get daily emails from job search engines stating that it's a known fact that employers often check your social networks cautioning you to keep it clean. We know networking is important, but you have to know how to use it. I recently did a Linkedin tutorial that was three hours long, it was very informative, since then I have been able to use this tool as a knowledge base with loads benefits. We live in a world that's generated by technology, emails can be traced, text messages can be traced, the websites you visit can be traced, if you pay taxes you can be traced, if your a citizen of the United States with a social security number your traced, if your a legal immigrant your traced, post 911 we're all under the big eye in the sky, its called surveillance. This article may be controversial but well worth reading.
I am sorry to say That this is a partial truth. It forgets the internet is accessible from world Wide. no border. It forgets all the circumstances where legitimately one would need to remain anonymous. They are situations where you do not wish to reveal your identity, hence want or even need to be active on social media. Could it be that you are in a repressive regime, you have specific activities you do not wish everyone around you to know, etc.... Facebook expects you and encourages you to reveal your private life, opinions, activities, etc.... How can it respects the different layers of your personality? Do speak the same language with your children, your employer, your parents, etc...? If you have one single FB account with your real name, are you expected to have a 'flat' personality? How can you afford to change your mind, your attitude, improve, if you have to be stick with ONE single Facebook identity from birth to death? Having worked in the field of online safety, yes, one big dream would be real identity and even controlled access online with age verification on goo. I am also a lawyer and keen enough on freedom of speech to understand the chilling effect of such real name policy to combat it. Said like this author says it, it looks fantastic but this author undermines the many various case scenarios where real identity is harmeful. And I haven't even mentioned the issue of ID theft.
Salesforce Architect | 10x Salesforce Certified | Actively Seeking Opportunities
11 年This is very insightful, especially when a time existed when we would be really using handles and now when we don't require that, I think openness is a quality we should imbibe, no matter how sharp the sword but yes also remember with more information comes a price, and what we project as the saying goes,"One man's tool is another man's weapon".
NoSQL Database Engineer at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
11 年Thanks Ryan Holmes for your article. Very enlighting. I agree about transparency on LinkedIn. Regarding Twitter, I still making up my mind. Can I fully trust it as a professional network developing tool?