What's In A Website Or App Name? A Lot.
Posted by anastasia on 03-21-2008
I've been thinking a lot about anonymity lately because it is a key aspect to the application we're working on to offer youth portable support and resources online. Like technology itself, the possibility of posting anonymously can be used for good or bad or something in between. The good is the opportunity to share your secrets, and by typing them and receiving feedback that others share those same experiences, realizing that you're not alone. The bad is the ability to bully online without being accountable for your words or actions.
While there is no perfect online community, the tone and guidelines or standards a community sets and actively enforces at launch is key to whether it will reflect the vision of its creators and most passionate members or whether it will be taken over by vandals and bullies. Part of what I think is important in setting the tone is what you name your community. For example, think about this set of names: JuicyCampus, Gossip Report, Enemybook. Gee, ya think these sites might inspire cyberbullying? Even though the name Honesty Box is relatively benign, the devil horns attached to the "o" in Box let us know you can say anything about anyone.
Now consider a site like PostSecret, which has a more artsy feel, a backstory and is curated by its founder. Or GroupHug - you can't get more warm and fuzzy than that. Even True Mom Confessions sets the tone by saying "Motherhood is hard. Admit it."
I honestly think that when a site or application offers users the option to post their secrets, create anonymous profiles or confess anonymously and consciously chooses to spin it as "juicy" or "gossip," they have to be accountable for the inevitable negative fallout that will happen when users abuse anonymity in that same spirit. This post was inspired by the recent New York TImes article about students using Honesty Box to bully and this weird story where they never give the name of the actual site (it's Gossip Report), but reports:
A Web site that invites people to anonymously post gossip about each other is creating problems at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.
In the past week, students have used the site to bully, post compromising photos of their rivals and spread rumors about other kids' supposed sexual experiences, abortions, eating disorders, diseases and drug use. Many of the messages have been viewed thousands of times.
At least two students who have been the subject of the gossip mill are afraid to go to school anymore. Assistant Superintendent Gail Miller has personally talked with parents of five students about the site.
Gossip Report's 25-year-old creator denies any culpability for how students are using her site.
Their site has no legal or ethical responsibility to protect kids by censoring gossip, said Elizabeth Bloch, who said she graduated in 2005 from State University of New York at Albany with a communications degree.
Fine. No legal responsibility. But no ethical responsibility? What do you think?
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:02 am
Anonymous + mean = REALLY WRONG! But wait… this is the internet and you could get rich off of hurting someone else… right? It’s wrong!. And then we wonder where our kids get it from???? On our anonymous secrets section on AllyKatzz (for girls ages 10-15), we review every secret before it is posted. Almost 1,000 secrets have been posted, but hundreds are in the “delete” folder because they can be harmful to kids. Here’s an example… ”I hate my bff but I act like I like her because she’s more popular than me” will get posted. But “I hate my bff, Cindy Smith, because she has a big butt” will NOT get posted. One could argue that we are censoring secrets and if that’s a girl’s secret, it should be posted. But what’s the point? All it does it hurt a person and for all we know, Cindy is already anorexic and this could push her over the edge. Kids, teens, adults – age doesn’t matter here - can be mean. Giving people a place to be mean is wrong… mean and anonymous is really wrong.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
GossipReport is VERY harmful:
The creators and promoters of the "gossip report" website are completely wrong. Their website should be held accountable because of its recklessly poor monitoring practices. First, anyone can place personally identifying information such as pictures, videos and last names on the website without that person's consent. Second, anyone can post any information about that person anonymously. Third, staff members of the website have repeatedly claimed that they will not remove information that are lies and/or hurtful to people. At the very least, there is no way that the staff members to verify all the posts that are lies and/or hurtful. Fourth, there is evidence that students at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Washington are being targeted with vicious, graphic postings that are not being removed from the website by the staff. Fifth, there is a pattern of conduct by the staff members that indicate they are reveling in free publicity from the outrage over what is happening to innocent minors.
These staff members include Elizabeth (hmm…) Bloch, Ashley Murphy, and "investor" David Chase who runs a criminal background organization called "Castle Branch" out of North Carolina.
All of this leads to the conclusion that the operators of this website do not want to reasonably safeguard innocent minors from harm. See the following article:
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080321/NEWS01/706213764
Without immediate changes in the way this website operates, there should be immediate legal action against the site, laws that prevent similar sites from being established so recklessly in the future, and boycotts of everything their creators do to earn a financial living related to this site.
Thanks for listening!
April 8th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Hi there Anastasia! Running 7 anonymous websites is definitely challenging especially when the conventional wisdom is "Normal person+anonymity = asshat." I have to say, however, I've been pleasantly surprised over the past year at how respectful my anonymous posters have been and how supportive they've been of each other. We moderate all our content - but it's really a very small percentage of confessions that don't get posted. We've just introduced comments - and if you sign up with a verified email address - then your comments get posted immediately. We'll see how it goes. Especially with the mom site, we're seeing more benefit than harm in the community so far.