(no subject)

[brushwolf]

My opinion about false identities/anonymous identities on the internet has changed from "eh, it's another thing where the adult authorities want us to do one thing, but you can slip through the cracks" to "this really pisses me off."

The latest thing here is Mark Zuckerburg's sister declaring that internet anonymity is going away because it prevents bullying. So once again, someone's decided to pull the "to protect our precious precious children" rhetoric to basically do whatever the hell they feel like - I'm pretty sure the end of anonymity is more a convenience to the big companies than to individual users.

And it's total bullshit. I'm old, okay? I grew up before the internet for all practical purposes. And I remember a fuckton of bullying. Face to face, from kids I had to deal with every day - and from the teachers. The ability to fight back or complain was real, real limited. No internet means nobody tried cyberbullying me, which yeah, I guess I could retreat back to my bedroom and build models or whatever. But where would my life have been if I could have bitched at a batch of adults or kids online that bullies were making my life hell? Where would my life have been if I could have posted a batch of artwork under a fanciful name, or made a YouTube channel? Where would my life have been if I'd had something like the "It Gets Better" project which I could sneak off and see without getting caught? So much for protecting the children.

So let's see, this person at the top of the corporate hierarchy in a country which really benefits people at the top of the corporate hierarchy;

• doesn't have to fear losing their jobs for complaining about coworkers
  
• doesn't have to fear losing their jobs if it becomes known they have a side business, like art or writing, which supervisors might feel detracts from their real job
  
• doesn't have to fear social censure or losing their jobs if their kinks are made public
  
• doesn't have to fear social censure for doing weird hobbies, like say, building the entire D&RGSW in their basement
  
• doesn't have to fear being beat up by other teens if they complain about stuff at school
  
• doesn't have to fear being harassed or beat up by other teens if they use online to investigate an interest in same-sex relationships
  
• doesn't have to fear being harassed by family or others if they use online to find out more about how you have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend
  
• doesn't have to fear harassment at the hands of their church if they investigate other religions - or talk about leaving the LDS, or whatever.
  
• doesn't have to fear their family if they come forward to talk about abuse
  
• doesn't have to fear anti-Semitism if they come forward as Jewish
  
• doesn't have to fear government forces if they criticize the government

Wow. I can see that this lovely corporate exec has a real stake in protecting people. This sort of rhetoric pisses. Me. The. Fuck. Off.

And I can say all this, only because I sincerely hope this statement doesn't come back to haunt me in 3-10 years.

Comments

[brushwolf]

The thing that started me being cranky is that one of the shorter jobs I worked in a corporate setting was in an HR office. I was really happy to chat with my supervisor, over lunch during the first week, and was pretty enthusiastic about how I'm an artist. I was told that I should never mention being an artist - it makes me look flaky, like I'm about to jump ship or something. I don't think that's connected to how I got canned from that job a while after that (I think they were looking for an assistant with more HR experience and they found a better candidate).

And that's tame! I don't mind my coworkers knowing I draw, but it's always made me feel I need to be very careful about making sure that I'm Jon-the-soulless-secretary on the job, rather than Jon-the-artist-who-needs-to-make-rent. Internet anonymity lets me do that.

This ties into my dissatisfaction with Facebook. Everything I know about Facebook is that it's The Superficial Way of Interacting with the World. Your family follows you there. Your coworkers follow you there. People you know from High School follows you there. So you have to have interests and a personality, but they have to be generally accepted interests and a generally milspec standard personality. And you're expected to have a Facebook so employers can scope you out. It reminds me of when I worked at Amazon and they were kind enough to throw officially fun parties with beer for the employees, and attending the parties was pretty much mandatory.

[frogfarm]

fun parties with beer for the employees, and attending the parties was pretty much mandatory

Wow, that's one step removed from forcing alcohol down your throat. I'd have asked if they had sodium pentothal for a chaser.

I guess not only am I glad not to have a Facebook, I'm glad that I can go barefoot most of the time, and that I'm surrounded by others whose idea of civilization is being able to pee off the front porch and fire guns off the back. (For various values of peeing standing up)

But that bit about someone advising you not to cop to being an artist? Yeah. Creepy.