The dark side of anonymous
@RANDOM
| I first discovered the power of names by accident, almost a decade ago, when I created a masculine profile in order to avoid harassment from over-libidinous men on a literature chat site. The people I met online reacted as though I was a man, and in two weeks, my "persona" changed, adapted, became a little more masculine. It was disconcerting and fascinating, but harmless. |
| Some years later, I started a litblog under the pseudonym of Hurree Babu, and discovered that the Babu had a distinctly different style from his maker. When the blog went into hibernation after four years, it was hard to know whether I mourned the Babu or whether I felt secret relief at his retirement. |
| Though these relatively minor experiments with anonymity and avatars were interesting, full-blown role-playing didn't appeal to me. Like most people, I find the idea of creating an absolutely separate persona a little creepy. |
| To create a new username is one thing; to create a whole new identity is another. Even the least imaginative can sense that there is a dark side to creating another persona, another me, another you. |
| Lori Drew didn't share this belief. Last year, Ms Drew, then 47, set up a MySpace account posing as a teenage boy called Josh. She suspected that 13-year-old Megan Meiers was spreading mean rumours on MySpace about her own daughter, and thought she would use "Josh" to spy on Megan. |
| The Meiers and Drews were neighbours in Missouri, so Lori Drew was aware that Megan was depressed, sensitive about her weight problem, and on medication. Lori Drew created "Josh" as a prank; Megan took Josh seriously, though. She drew closer to "him" and when "Josh" insulted her, the teenager committed suicide. |
| A year later, a blog titled "Megan Had it Coming" has appeared on the Net. It has barely three posts, two in November and one on December 3, but those posts have drawn 1,149, 215 and 1,901 comments each at the time of writing. |
| "It's time I dropped the charade. Yes, I made this blog. Yes, I'm Lori Drew," writes Kristen. In her first post, Kristen/Lori calls the dead girl "psycho", "Megan the bitch", "shallow" and "slutty". No one knows if this is really Lori Drew or just a sick-minded Internet troll. |
| Those of us who spend time online have fiercely defended the right to free speech, the right to an open rather than monitored Internet. I have also always kept in mind a simple truth about cyberspace: it offers huge possibilities, it is an exhilarating space, but "online" and "safe" do not automatically go together. |
| Lori Drew's case illustrates two disturbing features. The first is that anonymity can be deeply dangerous. I don't include most pseudonymous bloggers here, or those who use anonymity to protect themselves against possible predators. The ability to be anonymous is open to great misuse however. I have no explanation for why a 47-year-old adult would ever think it was okay to masquerade as a 16-year-old teenager to a disturbed teenager. Anonymity allows people to adopt malicious personas and avatars; it can bring out a deeply cruel and destructive side in those who are disturbed. |
| The second has to do with identity. It is not okay to pretend you're someone else. It's not acceptable to be either a mother preying on a young teen's emotions, or to be a cybervigilante urging Internet mobs to lynch the Drew family. |
| Role-playing and avatars are fun up to a point. If you cross the point where you lose sight of responsibility, or take on a role that might harm someone else, you've crossed into very dark territory. When Lori Drew crossed that line, it cost Megan Meiers her life. No price could be higher than that. |