Anonymity - Is it Really Such a Good Thing?
I was reading an article yesterday about how facial recognition is getting so good that there are apps being built for cellphones that can identify random strangers from photos (taken as you walk along with your cell phone). The article was bemoaning the fact that this was a “further invasion of our privacy” and that pretty soon nothing we do would be private. I then moved on to another article that talked about how Google(?) was working on an algorithm that could evaluate the writing style of someone online and make a good correlation as to who actually wrote it. Even if the author had posted anonymously or with a pseudonym. The article was bemoaning the fact that this was a “further invasion of our privacy” and that pretty soon nothing that we do online would be private. But is this idea of “privacy” such a good thing? Ultimately, what it really is is the idea that we can go out in public or online and be anonymous. And some people see anonymity as the same as the freedom to do anything they want. And as we saw in London over the past few days, anything they want seems to cover a wide swath of things that most civilized societies consider wrong. Some examples of things anonymous people do:
- looting and destroying property
- verbally harassing people
- generally behaving like boorish trolls
And people who are willing to stand up and say who they are, thus taking responsibility for their actions, tend to avoid these actions, not necessarily because they don’t want to do them, but because they know that they are impugning on their good name if they do so. Because they are not anonymous. I think of the (moronic) individuals who went looting in London and then posted photos of themselves and their spoils online. With face recognition software, they are no longer anonymous. And they can be held responsible for their crimes. Internet trolls who write hateful comments on forums and blogs just because they are anonymous might think twice if they knew that their comments would be identified as being from them. And even if they didn’t think twice, their friends and family might have a better idea of what thugs they are friends with or related to. I wish more people would stand up for their actions, and stop hiding behind anonymity.