How do you feel about a public internet?
4chan founder Christopher Poole made an extremely rare public appearance at this years’ TED (technology, entertainment, design) expo. Some background: 4chan is a website where users can post anything they want anonymously. Content posted ranges from pornography to Rick Rolling. It is the birthplace of many internet jokes and gags. If you’re online more than the average person, you know about 4chan.
Until recently, Poole went by nothing more than his alias, ‘moot’. Taking into consideration the fact that he created a website based on anonymous posting, it isn’t at all surprising that it took him 7 years to decide he should make his true identity as founder of 4chan publicly known. In an interview with CNN, Poole went on to discuss how most people’s online presence is now no different than their real life identity. Everyone shares a wealth of information on multiple social networking websites these days, leaving many intimate details out in the open. While this is not new, it is more widespread than ever. Chris Poole refers to it as a “persistent user identity.”
Poole’s biggest concern? Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) has recently stated that user privacy is becoming less of a priority moving forward. Imagine Facebook being programmed to exploit even more of your information. Granted, this information would have to be provided by the user in the first place; but I know more people who post everything on Facebook than people who keep most of it (if not all) under wraps. Moot went on to state that the idea of being anonymous is dying off on the internet. I always considered anonymity to be a staple that the internet should never forfeit, but it looks like we aren’t going to have much say in how things go. Do you think this is the direction the web should go in? Is a more public internet a good idea?
sigh. so instead of trolling, why not post up valid points: 4chan and facebook are two very different sites, the internet is public, you can access it from your library, and also from lamers who don’t use wifi protection or use WEP as their encryption (lollikeacertainsomeoneiknow)
ok, so the last one takes a little finesse. privacy is all up to the user. don’t want your name on there? don’t sign up. don’t want someone talking to you or viewing your info? use that incredible block feature (but that’s really a snake-oil tactic).
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fyrestorm Reply:
February 25th, 2010 at 11:55 am
also this site isnt completely anonymous either, i have to put in info. i chose to put in a valid email that i use. i’m sure you can take it and look up info on me.
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I think anonymity is one of the reasons the internet is so amazing. Sure you may not be perfectly anonymous but to the average internet user you could be anyone. Things like age and appearance aren’t a factor. Where you live often isn’t a factor. It’s a kind of freedom that you rarely get in the real world anymore.
I have no problem with anyone who wants to put all of their information online. I would have a problem if a company, group or website decided that people no longer have a right to privacy on the internet. A user should have the choice of what they put online, who can access it, and whether or not the website can leak any of that information to any other company.
If a website doesn’t give you those rights and you want them, don’t use that website.
So while I personally am not in favor of a more public internet, I don’t mind if other people choose to participate in a public internet, so long as I’m not forced to do so.
@Fyrestorm
…what? Did you read this article? Did you just read the title and barely skim through it?
“the internet is public, you can access it from your library,” That clearly isn’t related to the topic of the article. He’s not talking about whether or not someone can access the internet in public.
Also your email address isn’t publicly available on here. Even if it were there isn’t much you can do with an email address besides find other places where it’s publicly listed. So at worst you might have a problem with internet stalking.
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fyrestorm Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
u dont even know me kid shut the f*ck up hidin behind yuor computar id f*ckin lump u out if u fronted on me like that in person kid, f*ckin bitchass little nerd hidin behind ur computer screen little pussy i’d kick ur *ss irl f*gget
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