Who’s really who on Facebook?
We all know what a wonderful aid the internet can be to communication and debate. Sadly, we are becoming aware of how often spiteful anonymous comments can poison the well of web conversations. But now there's something of a fightback - and the social networks where many of these conversations happen will be under growing pressure to do more to protect vulnerable users.
On Monday's Today programme, Nicola Brooke described in moving detail how she had been bullied on Facebook - and had fought back by getting a court order forcing the social network to identify the anonymous people who had mounted a vicious campaign of abuse.What struck me was that Facebook and other social networks had once appeared to offer the promise of a more civilised online communication precisely because they were places where people were who they said they were.
Unlike web forums where bilious commenters express themselves in ways they would never dream of doing without the shield of anonymity, social networks like Facebook and Twitter should be more polite because you have to be who you say you are.
But that no longer appears to be the case. Facebook now has 900 million active users but it seems quite a large proportion of them are not "real" people. (The company says false or duplicate accounts probably make up 5- 6% of its users, although it admits that this is a very rough estimate and may not be accurate.)
So what is Facebook doing about this? The company says it does not actively police its users to make sure they are not breaking the rules - that would be impossible given the scale of the network - but relies on others reporting abuse. When the network receives complaints, it says it is reasonably evident when an account is breaking the rules on anonymity. Obvious clues include a user who has started several accounts using the same email address, or who has had lots of friend requests rejected. But Facebook won't reveal how many accounts it has suspended over the past year, so it is difficult to know exactly how well the system is working. Perhaps we all need to be more active in reporting abuse on networks like this. And maybe networks like Facebook need to be more active in policing their own rules.
Adapted from: http://www.bbc.com, July, 2012.
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