Faking it online
pease
Tech Admin
in Epiphanies
I've long been intrigued about people joining online forums using fake personas. Not as a means to an end (eg catfishing or creating a false identity), but for the primary purpose of engaging in public discussion, interacting with other members, while adopting an inauthentic role.
Given the formative effect that people using fake personas has had on these forums, my question isn't primarily about why individuals would do this, but the effect that this has on online communities and the ways in which online communities can and do respond.
Given the formative effect that people using fake personas has had on these forums, my question isn't primarily about why individuals would do this, but the effect that this has on online communities and the ways in which online communities can and do respond.
Comments
For instance, many many moons ago when I was about 18 I was bothered by the way gender and gender preception affected one's online interactions.* So I joined a roleplaying forum but I claimed that the person behind my character (Gwaihir, named after the eagle) was a young man. I wasn't perfect at it and at least one person says he saw through me.
That community ended up being home for many years. They are the ones who nicknamed me Gwai. I ended up being open with them as they learned enough of my real life to need to know. I have met many of them. At least a couple I am still in some touch with. So I don't think that my attempt to be who I wasn't hurt anyone. But obviously if things had gone differently and they felt deceived that could have been a heavier harder thing.
*And my own gender feelings, but that wasn't something I was aware of then
Yes, there is a risk that someone can flat out lie and misrepresent themselves. That’s a risk weighed against other risks in an online forum. And my experience is that in the relatively rare times it happens, people can often tell that something is off.
IMHO that's not the kind of thing you're likely to see a great deal of, but it can do damage to a community, and more the longer it goes undetected.
What effect do you think it has?
I do. An unconscionable catfisher who hurt a lot of genuine people who were invested in their narrative. Just despicable.
On the note of the OP I post regularly on the INTJ Reddit forum and despite my little ♀️ next to my profile name, I am regularly replied to as "dude" . Must have something to do with my posting style which I have been told is somewhat eccentric, but I guess it's eccentric only if you know I'm a woman. Apparently it's perfectly normal for a man.
I generally don't bother to correct the misperception. Not my fault if you can't read emoji.
AFF
This definitely had an effect on me - the Curious Buddhist / unicycle collective involved a few other sock puppets to interact with the main identities and it does make me think twice about posters I don't know who could fit that mould.
Sometimes it turns out over time that yes I see enough to feel they're who they say they are - sometimes I've felt ultra cautious and have hung back from interacting more than necessary with posters who ring those particular bells for me. It's always at the back of my mind though when those bells ring - but then I tend towards caution and social anxiety as a person so that may be just me. I think I probably privately err on the less trusting side but also try to keep an open mind about things as well, as I could be totally wrong and just sensitised by this and other bad experiences...
Per Lambchopped that experience has made me more cautious and probably a bit more suspicious in certain circumstances. I have come across this in real life at one remove in that a colleague that I worked with - a few years before I joined the team - had convinced all his colleagues that his wife was dying of cancer and they found out by accident when trying to send flowers to the hospital that the illness was entirely fictional.
My experience of working alongside of him, was that it was as if he just found life too boring - if there was no real crisis or drama he would tend to narrate events as if there was one. I did wonder if he had histrionic personality disorder.
Echoing this, please pease.
I think it has a chilling effect on community. I see it as a violation of the Eighth Commandment (Scriptural, not Shiptural) about not bearing false witness. Ultimately, fraud is destructive of community, because nobody can believe what anybody says or represents. It burns through the compassion and goodwill that people extend to others in distress.
There are milder versions of misrepresentation, even prudent ones, as Gwai noted: women pretending to be men online, to avoid harassment. In that case, the underlying community problem is men harassing women.
When it involves adoption of the voice of a person in a marginalized group, it's an offense to that group. That person is "taking up space" in a public forum that is not theirs to take, and prevents a real voice from being heard.
It's a problem IRL in some places in Canadian society, with the phenomenon of "Pretendians"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretendian
People who are not indigenous, adopting the persona and voice of indigenous people, are truly problematic. AIUI Canadian identity concerning indigeneity does not centre on blood quantum (eww) but on which First Nation acknowledges your identity. Americans may be more familiar with this phenomenon in terms of those who pretend to be Black online.
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One is the anonymity, typically in the name of protecting privacy, represented by using a “screen name” rather than one’s actual name.
The other is intentional misrepresentation of being what one is not, such as with regard to gender, ethnicity, occupation, religion or whatever, which can be done regardless of whether a screen name is used rather than a real name. (Though a screen name certainly can make detection more difficult.)
I was going to say something along those lines as well. Most of us here post under a screen name - I think back when I joined the Ship in 2007 I did it mostly because that’s pretty much what everyone else was doing, but now I think it’s pretty essential to many of us not to have every thought we’ve ever expressed on the Ship instantly Googleable under our real names. That said, I always post under the assumption that anyone could be reading what I post here and that for one reason or another they might know or figure out who I am IRL.
I’ve occasionally wondered if a particular Shipmate was really who or what they held themselves out to be in some way, but the impression I get is that people here are generally genuinely sharing their opinions, experiences, etc., bearing in mind that we are all inevitably selective about what we share in particular contexts and especially online.
Truthfully, these scenarios are exactly why I censor more than half of what happens to my family in real life. Don't want to be accused. Nobody ever has, but if I were looking at me, I'd wonder.
It's one thing to actively misrepresent yourself, making positive statements that are outright lies. And it's particularly bad when you are in a space where people are expected to be a particular gender/race/group/whatsit, or just to be telling the truth.
But there are spaces where a certain amount of pretending is permitted. The Ship was one, in the early days. We had folks who would come on as a particular gender (that was mostly the issue) and then, after they felt safe enough, would sort of sheepishly admit they'd been pretending (and I'm not talking about people working through gender identity issues here). I remember this happening several times, and the usual reaction was, "Oh. Whatever." Because we all knew that in the culture of those days, it was fine to represent yourself as being of a different gender or whatever, and so I, at least, never assumed that the curated identity was identical with the real life person behind it. Sort of like going to a costume party, where you expect people to turn up in disguise, if they want to. It's not a lie or harmful when it's an understood alternative.
And really, ALL online identities are to some extent fictitious, because we can't cram in every aspect of our lives, even important ones--and lots of us don't even know ourselves well enough to try. (I've had my son mimicking me occasionally, and it's a small shock every time to realize what he's picked up on as a defining point of Mom. I had no idea I said "basically" so often, or that I was such an obvious worrywart
My personal feeling is that a degree of suspicion and distrust in relation to anything online is appropriate, and that online community (especially one operating in a public space) isn't directly equivalent to offline community in this regard.
There appear to be a range of positions on the nature of "fake" (for want of a word) personas, and the potential harms.
I like Lamb Chopped's simile of going to a costume party, of being in disguise, and broadly agree that all online identities are to some extent fictitious. In that regard, I lean towards "fake" being a fairly broad term, without a clearly-defined or commonly-agreed boundary. So, rather than anonymity and misrepresentation being two different things, I suggest that anonymity (or pseudonymity) is just at the end of the scale that most of us are are comfortable with and consider not to be intrinsically harmful.
I think it's also relevant (eg in relation to boundaries) that this particular community has a broadly Christian framing, even if a significant proportion of the members don't (or no longer) subscribe to its tenets.
This suggests to me that there might be a widely-held expectation of being open and welcoming to newcomers, and that there is a consequent expectation that people will be more-or-less who they say they are, and that to be otherwise is to abuse the welcome.
But, as has been pointed out by members over the years, its also the case that some people join and engage because they can explore issues here, especially relating to Christian faith, that they would not do (and not be able to do) in their real-life situations.
Thinking about Gwai's post, maybe intent only matters if you're found out, and that regardless of the nature of the misrepresentation, the individual is then at the mercy of the community. In other words, maybe a community decides for itself whether or not a particular individual's misrepresentation is harmful, rather than it being intrinsically harmful.
I remember on one site, I decided I wouldn't share my age or gender, and I was quite open with this decision. Quite a few people got annoyed with this, saying I wasn't being real, that they couldn't get to know me properly. I told them they could get to know me just fine by what I wrote, and that age and gender don't define me. I found it interesting when people took what I wrote and put it through some gender identifier thing and told me I was clearly a man!
I remember on that same site one lad admitting that he'd lied about his age so that he could be accepted into the site and be made a moderator and be respected. He'd been 12 when he joined - he waited till he was 18, to admit his lie! It didn't bother me, but one friend he'd made (who'd thought she was the same age as him) was very hurt and felt he'd not been real with her and that she now couldn't trust him.
A time when I observed a community get hurt was on a diary site where one diary was supposedly of a dying boy - 'a dying boy' was literally his username, and I think he claimed to be 13 - and a lot of people felt sorry for him and sent him gifts and money. I'd suspected it wasn't genuine when I first saw it, but it also didn't interest or entertain me, and so I didn't follow his diary - I just imagined some kid was having fun creating a melodramatic story. I then felt bad for not saying anything when I realised afterwards that people had been taken in, had sent him gifts and money, and were now feeling betrayed, but of course in that situation it's pretty hard to voice suspicion without sounding heartless, especially when it is just suspicion, plus none of my friends on the site followed him anyway.
Apparently one parent had been unmasked as a faker before I joined (some of the parents were super smart and well connected in the community, and worked together to work out what was going on.
After I joined (maybe 3 years or so in), another faker joined the community. They were identified when their child died and families wanted to send flowers etc. to the family. I think one of the admins got in touch with their treatment centre and found out that they didn't exist. The thing that families found particularly hurtful was the co-opting of other families' experiences and the complications of treatment the faker claimed their child was experiencing. It was a very distressing time for all concerned, particularly those families who recognised themselves in the posts that were being created by the faker, which mirrored those of their own children who were really struggling. The hard thing to understand was the motivation of someone to seek out the community and what they might be hoping to gain from joining it. Honestly, it's the club no one wants to belong to!
Joining the listserv was tightened up and behind the scenes I am sure there were checks being carried out by the admins, you could not begin posting without the approval of the admins.
The great strength of the community was the number of members (over 500) and the willingness of families to share their stories, their experiences and their encouragment with others, particularly the newly diagnosed shell-shocked families who had a lot of questions and thrived on the information supplied. Even though I joined 3 years into treatment, I still learnt so much and remain grateful for the care of that community.
Our son has a blog site and even now, a lady called S from the community will comment on my infrequent posts, even though both our kids are now 15 years into their survivorship. There are fortunately more good than bad actors out there, in my experience!