They used to say that on the Web, no one knows if you are a dog. These days, it seems like anonyminity
has gone out the window and everyone knows everyone else’s business (see my related post on FOMO vs.TMI).
The New York Times wrote about this in the article: Upending Anonyminity: These Days, the Web Unmasks Everyone. It cited recent examples, like the now famous picture of the kissing couple in Vancouver (amidst the riots following the Canucks’ hockey loss) and Anthony Weiner. It said:
The collective intelligence of the Internet’s two billion users, and the digital fingerprints that so many users leave on Web sites, combine to make it more and more likely that every embarrassing video, every intimate photo, and every indelicate e-mail is attributed to its source, whether that source wants it to be or not. This intelligence makes the public sphere more public than ever before and sometimes forces personal lives into public view.
In addition to embarassing people, the Web can also be helpful in solving crimes and revealing truths.
So, which is it: is the Web a harsh enforcer of mob vengeance, a tool of repressive governments or is it an engine for efficiently revealing truths? Perhaps all of the above?
Despite the name of my blog I am not paranoid, and tend to be centrist in my views. I am not some kind of anarchist. Yet this whole idea kind of reminds me of words from the opening pages of George Orwell’s book 1984.
There seemed to be no color except in the posters that were plastered everywhere … BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said….inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures… the voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall… the instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely… the telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously… any sound that Winston made, above the level of a low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained in the field of vision… he could be seen as well as heard
