QotW5: Online Identity

Internet has allowed for a unique form of interaction: group or “many-to-many” interaction, unfettered by geography. Part of the attraction of CMC is that it allows participants to separate their physical selves from their writing and actions online (2004). Thus to be a part of this computer mediated communication and participate in discussions, one must create an online identity.

An online identity is a social identity that network users establish in online communities. Although some people prefer to use their real names online, most Internet users prefer to identify themselves by means of pseudonyms, which reveal varying amounts of personally identifiable information. In some online contexts, including Internet forums, MUDs, IRC, instant messaging, and massively multiplayer online games, users can represent themselves visually by choosing an avatar, an icon-sized graphic image. As other users interact with an established online identity, it acquires a reputation, which enables them to decide whether the identity is worthy of trust. (Online Identity, 2007).

One such online identity I created was on Orkut. Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Similar to Friendster and MySpace, Orkut goes a step further by permitting the creation of easy-to-setup simple forums (called "communities") of users (Orkut, 2007).



Some features of Orkut include rating your friends’ system where Users have options to rate their friends in the order of "Best Friends", "Good Friends", "Friends", "Acquaintances" and "Haven't met". A member can view profile details of people only on his/her network, Orkut allows anyone to visit anyone's profile, unless a potential visitor is on your "Ignore List". Importantly, each member can also customize his/her profile preferences and can restrict information that appears on their profile from their friends and/or others (not on the friends list).

People are always bothered about what other people think about them. Reputation is the most important key for growing social relationships. If one does not have a good reputation in the market, they will be isolated and not associated with. Orkut has to bother about its users’ and its own reputation too.

Reputation online can be earned by increasing number of positive remarks on your profile. On Orkut, anyone can scrap or leave a message, for anyone. People leave comments, feelings, thoughts and ideas on various subjects, on each other’s accounts. The more the number of fans of a person, the popular the person is and is considered to have a good reputation, depending upon the content of the scraps posted. I feel that because one may receive a message from an unknown person, one is not judged partially as compared to receiving messages only from friends. Thus, one’s reputation is of greater value. As it is a public community, everyone who is a member of this community can view these messages and the number of times one’s profile is viewed, and the number of friend’s requests, determines the popularity of the person.

Identity plays a key role in virtual communities. In communication, which is the primary activity, knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating an interaction. (1996). People have many reasons for not wanting their real names to be revealed online to prevent identity theft; for instance, protection of privacy and anonymity are two reasons for creating online identities.

Identity theft is the new crime of the information age. Just as a criminal collects enough personal data on someone to impersonate a victim and racks up debt in the person's name before disappearing, similarly, an identity thief steals your individuality and uniqueness and leaves you behind with nothing. (2005)

As the number of Orkut users increased, there was a rise in the number of fake and clone profiles, something that can be achieved just in a matter of a few minutes. These fake profiles are normally created to troll, to spam, to flood or just for fun. Later, the clones started to flood communities and scrapbooks by submitting topics or scraps hundreds or thousands of times manually.

With so much personal information given about myself, like my birth date, address, email, age, friends and pictures, it is very easy for anyone to fake my identity and create one similar to it.

Another example of fake identity is the one below. It’s aparently Richard Gere’s online community, created by a fake. Celebrities are often targeted for identity theft.



Thus one should be careful and should protect their personal information online as identity deception is growing steadily and caution is better than regret.

Reference:

-Donath, J.S. (1996). Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Communities in Cyberspace.
http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

-Schneier, B. (2005). Schneier on Security: Mitigating Identity Theft.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/04/mitigating_iden.html

-Lackaff, D. (2004). Norm Maintenance in Online Communities: A review of Moderation Regimes. http://lackaff.net/node/20

-Online identity. (2007). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 18, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Online_identity&oldid=108207999

-Orkut. (2007). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Orkut&oldid=110026276

QotW 4: Gift Economies

A gift economy, also known as “sharing economies” (“Gift Economy”, 2007), is one in which help and information is offered without the exception of any direct, immediate quid-pro-quo (Rheingold (1993)). As mentioned in the reading, "A gift economy is an economic system in which the prevalent mode of exchange is for goods and services to be given without explicit agreement upon a quid pro quo (the Latin term for the concept of "a favor for a favor"). Typically, this occurs in a cultural context where there is an expectation either of reciprocation--in the form of goods or services of comparable value, or of political support, general loyalty, honor to the giver, etc.--or of the gift being passed on in some other manner." ("Gift Economy," 2007). An example of such an economy is, an online community; like the Usenet discussion groups. In such groups, there is an enormous amount of free help and information given out, often to complete strangers whom one may never meet again. (Rheingold (1993) [(“Gift Economy”, 2007)].

I feel, the gift economy is important, not only because it creates openness, but also because it organizes relationships between people in a certain way. For example, open source software development relies on gift giving as a way of getting new ideas into circulation. This also implies that the giver gets power from giving away. This power is used as a way of guaranteeing the quality of the information (Thomas, 2004).

Rheingold suggests that the reasons for contributing to online communities are to receive emotional support or intellectual companionship and having an interest in the domain of the community (Rheingold, 1993). Gift economies are necessary for knowledge production and dissemination. For instance, the online academic articles are intellectual gifts given in return for receiving the intellectual gifts of others. Gift economies serve to bind people together. They create and maintain social groups.

Gift economies differ from Commodity economies, as the latter works against bonding. The rules and expectations, which govern commodity exchange, serve to define and delimit mutual responsibility and future obligation between the parties involved (Baird, 1997). Ideal commodity exchanges occur when the parties involved understand at the outset just what each gives and receives and when the interaction is to be concluded. In a sense, commodity exchanges aim to establish—ideally, mutually beneficial—conclusions of interactions. In contrast, gift exchanges aim to initiate and maintain interactions. In stark contrast to commodity exchanges, gifts cannot have a dollar-measurable value. Such a value would allow a gift recipient to close the interaction; a gift of equal value could be returned leaving neither party obligated to the other. No further interaction would be necessary. Assigned dollar values work against social bonding (Baird, 1997).


Online interaction, an aspect of gift economy, can reduce the costs of contributing to the production of a public good in numerous ways. Any piece of information posted to an online community becomes a public good because the network makes it available to the group as a whole and because one person's “consumption” of the information does not diminish another person's use of it (“Gift Economy”, 2007). Also almost everyone spends most of their time online, participating within the gift economy because users receive much more information than they can ever give away and there is no imposing of equal exchange on the Net (Barbrook, 2005).

There are many examples of gift economies. Any medium, that promotes exchange of information online without any expectations of returns, is a gift economy in its truest form. Blogspace is one example of an emerging and an interesting social space for free, independent, and widely distributed information production. Another example is discussion forums. Personally I am a fan of discussion forums. These forums give people like me, a chance to learn about something or enhance our knowledge on a topic that interests us. Nowadays, one has forums for everything ranging from poker, to dance to education. I am a part of many such forums but my personal favorites are my school discussion forum and The Beatles discussion forum. I am passionate about both these forums and they form an integral part of me.

My school, Mayo College Girls School in India, set up this forum with the help of some alumni students. It informs us about what’s new in school, uploads pictures for us to see and also helps us keep in touch with our teachers and school friends we left behind. It not only has weekly updates but also has information about students and reunions too. I feel it is a nice way to keep in touch and revive old memories.

Another discussion board I am heavily into is The Beatles discussion forum. As mentioned earlier, I am a hardcore Beatles fan. I have grown up listening to their music and own every CD released by them. For those who are not very familiar, I recommend the Anthology Series, which is an 11-hour footage of them, their lives and their music. I am sure once you watch the DVD’s you will become a follower! Coming back to the forum, I feel it is an interesting forum as Beatles fans from all across the globe come together and talk about their experiences and discuss a variety of topics like their music, tours, lives, break up, and even the controversial death of John Lennon. Thus Gift Economies are a blessing in disguise in today’s competitive world.

Reference:

Kollock, P. (1999). 'The Economies of Online Cooperation; Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace" Retrieved February 8, 2007 from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm

Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Wikipedia (2007). Gift economy. Retrieved February 8, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Thomas, C. (2004) "other people benefit. i benefit from their work." Sharing Guitar Tabs Online. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Retrieved from
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2575.2001.00111.x/abs/

Baird, D. (1997) Scientific Instrument Making Epistemology, and the Conflict Between Gift and Commodity Economies. Retrieved from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v2n3n4/pdf/baird.pdf

Barbrook, R. (2005). The Hi- Tech Gift Economy. Retrieved from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_12/barbrook/

http://www.aboutthebeatles.com/forum/index.php

http://buffalo.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210656003

http://buffalo.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210722433

QotW3- Copyright

Content creators are artists. They generate, invent and produce an object or an idea. On the other hand, public good refers to people, the masses wanting to hear or read the material generated by the content creators. The people want to hear and read without paying a premium for it whereas the content creators want to charge an amount for the work they have produced in order to maintain their interest and incentive to produce quality work. This is where copyright issues come up and create a rift between these two types of groups. The purpose of these laws is to benefit the public by promoting “the progress of science and useful arts; that is, learning and knowledge.” (An Introduction to Copyright, 2005). The means of this promotion is in the creation of laws, like copyright laws, that give the creators ‘exclusive rights’ to their creation for a limited time. This is financially beneficial for the creators, which provides motivation for these artists to continue creating original work that they might not have otherwise developed (An Introduction to Copyright, 2005). What both the parties desire is a balance. This balance must be reached between commercial interests of the artists and the social interests of the public.

"Copyright doesn't stifle creativity, it stifles your ability to use other people's work," (Remix culture: a rights nightmare, 2007). However, in today’s day and age there are certain software’s and people that use others work without proper rights thus breaching the copyright law. There are groups like the Adelphi Charter, Creative Commons, Open Source Software and Open Journal that have sprung up, looking to redress an imbalance in the system, and they emphasize on improved creativity and innovation. These groups strongly believe that it is in the public interest to make information free and they are pushing for information and material to be more accessible (Remix culture: a rights nightmare, 2007).
When Bill Gates supported the Copyright of software to protect it from being misused, it was Richard Stallman, who started the Free Software Movement and developed the concept of "Copyleft" and the GNU General Public License (GPL). What is most popular today is file sharing, peer-to-peer (P2P) and consumer-to-consumer distribution. Encouraged by ‘Creative Commons,’ an organization that in many ways applies the concept of sharing to creative works and aims to easily allow authors to license their work in a way that they choose, the people today are resorting to violating law and disrespecting the content creators (An Introduction to Copyright, 2005). Peer-to-peer, an upcoming technology is one where the creator’s aren’t getting paid for their work. Peer-to-peer file trading has so far proved to be an effective distribution mechanism for a range of music, but is unfair at compensating creators (Litman, Nov 23, 2003). Another such hazard to copyright is File sharing. This method is now one of the most common on-line activities where people not only download music but a number of other files too. File sharers use networks of computers to search for and download files from one another. The low cost of sharing and significant network externalities are key reasons for the dramatic growth in the size of the file sharing community (Litman, Nov 23, 2003). Since physical distance is largely irrelevant in file sharing, individuals from virtually every country in the world participate. There is great interest in understanding the economic effects of file sharing, in part because the music industry was quick to blame file sharing for a recent decline in sales. Between 2000 and 2003, the number of CD’s shipped in the United States fell by 20% to 750 million units (Litman, Nov 23, 2003). File sharing was seen as the main culprit for the decline in sales of records. Participants could substitute downloads for legal purchases, thus reducing sales. File sharing lowered the price of music, which drew in low-valuation individuals who would otherwise not have purchased albums (Litman, Nov 23, 2003).

The ongoing debate for years is that should those who cannot pay, be asked to pay when it is available for free? Software’s like Napster, Bit Torrents, Limewire, etc, are some software's based on P2P downloads. Even software’s like Firefox are free. They are open share and the reason for their success, apart from being free from copyright issues are, that they can be customized. Software’s like Microsoft Office or Explorer cannot be customized. Hence people have issues to pay for such software’s when free ones are readily available. Another debatable topic is the increase in new music artists removing copyright from their music or pieces of work to promote their albums. This is a blow to copyright but a publicity stunt, which has made them popular. People are not only listening and using their music, but are also getting inspired to ‘Rip’ other music to share online.

In conclusion, there is no end to laws and other technical structures like trackers, etc but one should understand that the artists are creative people trying to earn their living by producing quality goods. Thus is one violates the copyright law and promotes piracy or plagiarism; they are giving the artist no incentive to produce quality work. If artists stop getting money for their work, they will stop producing good products, leading to a lack of talent and good work. Hence, the public good and content creator’s should come to compromise, which is equally good on both, thus forming an ideal situation. Ideal situation does not mean the product should be free, however, a complete foolproof answer has not been attained yet. The content creator’s would want to maintain their commercial interests whereas, the users would want a bargain. Therefore it is a difficult debate and may take years before equilibrium can be achieved.

Reference:

Litman, J. (2003). [On-line]. Retrieved January 30, 2007 from the World Wide Web:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=472141

Martin, R (2007). [On-line] Remix Culture: A Rights Nightmare from the World Wide Web:
http://www.abc.net.au/catapult/indepth/s1645533.htm

An Introduction to Copyright (2005). [On-Line] from World Wide Web:
http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/%7Ei312co/1.php