Redefining privacy and anonymity through social networking affordances

Abstract

Social networking sites allow people to create, broadcast, and interpret the self in new and evolving ways. While early online social media studies praised the Internet for providing an anonymous space in which to experiment with identity, more recent research suggests that social networking sites have become not anonymous, as they compel users to perform identity in new ways. Through a novel application of affordance theory, this paper argues that instead of attempting to apply outdated definitions of privacy to social networking spaces, we should instead be discussing our right to anonymity. I argue that privacy is immaterial due to the fact that from the moment we log in and interact with a social media interface, we have shared some type of personal information with someone. Anonymity, on the other hand, is defined as the unlinkability of our many identifications. Thus, instead of attempting to define ideas such as “personal” and “private,” we should instead fight for the separation of selves, both at the social and institutional level.

“You never really know who’s looking”: Imagined surveillance across social media platforms

“…The concealment of one’s “real” identity—such as through a fictitious moniker or multiple aliases on a single platform—emerged as another tactic of surveillance evasion. That is, users attempted to keep their digital personae “unlinkable” to other identity expressions through principles of fakery reminiscent of early web culture (boyd, 2014; Cirucci, 2015; Raynes-Goldie, 2010). One of the most frequently mentioned identity concealment tactics was the use of a pseudonym representing some variation of one’s name (Lincoln and Robards, 2017).…”

Trans Time

“…Social media sites need more easily understandable and usable privacy policies and settings [85]. Enabling privacy on social media sites requires considering how to enable people to separate online selves, such as through anonymity and multiple online personae [20]. While previous literature has generally focused on privacy on social media sites broadly, we examine privacy approaches on a site specifc to a particular marginalized community.…”

Undisciplined Performativity: A Sociological Approach to Anonymity

“…A useful way of conceptualizing how platforms act as silent mediators that steer user traffic over social media platforms is through the concept of “digital affordances” (Cirucci, 2015; Nagel, 2017). Using Gibson’s (1979) concept of affordances, Cirucci (2015) discusses how the structural affordances of a particular social media platform operate to shape how users performatively enact the self. For instance, Yik Yak provides users with the ability to upvote and downvote content on its feeds, such an affordance acts as a selection mechanic shaping how users prioritize or reject user-generated content.…”