Being anonymous online now is harder than it seems. Everything you o, watch, ready, and view is tracked in some way or another. Before Google and Facebook, being totally anonymous was as simple as just getting online. The internet has been know for just being able to spread misinformation or falsities very quickly and one must always judge the authenticity of what they are viewing. Since sites such as Facebook and Twitter came on the scene being able to judge ones authenticity online as an individual. Everyday Facebook and Twitter are cracking down on fake profiles and accounts by deleting from their servers and making it harder to get fake accounts out there.
Your personal identity now is permanently tied to your real life identity and what you view or post can potentially come back to haunt you later on. Facebook understands its users yearn for authenticity so with their $1 billion dollar purchase of Instagram it has allowed for users to connect both services allowing for a more authentic representation of the person who is sharing their lives through their pictures online. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook believes that your offline identity and online identity are one in the same. In contrast to this authenticity, Sites like 4chan and Reddit do not make its users register for an account just to view the content or even post anonymous content themselves (there are rules to what you can post of course), and they do not have an archive to track who is posting and all their information to go along with it. These sites are trying to hang on to that freedom that the internet once had. The Tor Project, or dark web, is allowing users to be 100% anonymous if you have the right tools such as a Virtual Private Network which allows one to be untraceable once connected to the internet. Although being anonymous online was once a possible achievement for anyone who connected to the internet, you have to watch yourself on the internet because you never know who is or will be watching.
I agree with you that being anonymous is an advantage when streaming the web. But that is an advantage that many people take for granted. The internet is indeed trying to control every aspect of online use, but only to put an end to the negatives that come from "online boosting". Its not fair to the people who are correctly using the internet.
ReplyDeleteIt's scary to think about how much of my personal information is on the Internet and how much of it can be accessed by a simple Internet search. This personal information is even more accessible due to the fact that many social profiles are linked to each other and relay information to each other. Internet hackers job's are becoming increasingly easier because of our interconnectedness and authenticity online. The tracking that websites and search engine are able to do based on our Internet profiles and browser cookies is frightening and user should be aware of what is going on behind the scenes within their web browsing.
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