A debate is currently raging regarding the value of anonymity online. On one side of the debate is Facebook, the world's largest social network site. Facebook demands that people use their real names and is one of the leading forces behind the push towards a "real name" Internet. On the other side of the debate are scholars such as danah boyd and Bernie Hogan and sites such as 4chan and Reddit that view anonymity and pseudonymity as important to how people construct identity online. While much has been written about the benefits of anonymity and pseudonymity, there is a lack of published research examining specific practices enabled by pseudonyms. This article provides a detailed account of the behaviors enabled through pseudonymous identity construction through a case study of the subreddit r/gonewild. The main contribution of the article is to provide a specific account of the costs of a totalizing embrace of the "real name" Internet.
Within the emerging field of critical algorithm studies, this article theorises that forced connections happen when algorithms exacerbate human actions in connecting otherwise disparate data points on digitally networked platforms to the subject of the data’s detriment. Although social media users may not have a comprehensive understanding of how algorithms work to make some content visible, when users form their own explanatory theories about these algorithms, they often intervene in these connections. Drawing on Michel de Certeau’s notion of strategies as the manipulations in which platforms engage to profile and control their users, and tactics as everyday acts of resistance, this article investigates two tactics within algorithmic cultures – Voldemorting, or not mentioning words or names in order to avoid a forced connection; and screenshotting, or making content visible without sending its website traffic – to demonstrate users’ understandings of the algorithms that seek to connect individuals to other people, platforms, content and advertisers, and their efforts to wrest back control.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.