The Anonymity Issues with The World-Wide-Web

My professor wants me to write a 500-word essay on how issues of race and gender interact with the issue of potential anonymity online. Okay, cool. This is a broad topic for so few words, and to top it off, I’m required to have some sort evidence to back up my logical reasoning. So where to begin?

Firstly, my opinion is that race should not be an issue with anonymity online. If anything, the world-wide-web makes us interconnected and increases our accessibility to all different races. The world is no longer a large and foreign place. We are becoming more similar, or at least increasingly understanding, to different races each and every day. For evidence to back up my reasoning type the term ‘global village’ into Google and see for yourself the information that comes up. (Or, go directly to: http://www.globalization101.org/the-global-village)

However, maybe I am being a little too optimistic about race on a global scale. For instance, if someone’s second language is English and they posted something anonymous online, I might be able to decipher from their use of vocabulary or slang that they are a different race, which would pose as an issue for online anonymity. But race does not really pose as too big of an issue, especially in the multi-cultural country I live; every day we become increasing assimilated to the point where I could not detect someone’s race in an anonymous post. For example, I have a friend, I knew he wasn’t originally from our country because of his beautiful darker complexion, but I had no idea what his ethnic background may be. Why? Because he has the exact same mannerisms as anyone else in our age demographic and I couldn’t detect an accent other than the one I assume everyone of this nationality has. So one day, I asked him what his ethnicity is he told me he’s East Indian, or at least, that is where his family is originally from. He was born here in this country and although he may be a different ‘race,’ if he were to post anonymously online, I would not be able to detect that he was East Indian.

Now, gender is a different thing all together, gender can be more identifiable with a person’s writing style, views and even adjectives used. Therefore gender is an issue with online anonymity. For instance, I used the words, “beautiful darker complexion” to describe my East Indian friend. From this adjective used, you as the reader can possibly predict my gender. For one, if you view that ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are interchangeable then you would assume that I am a heterosexual woman, as no straight male would use the adjective ‘beautiful’ to describe a male friend. However, if you know anything about the binary sex-gender system (for more information on it go to: https://www.genderspectrum.org/understanding-gender)then you could also assume that I could also be a homosexual male, or possibly transgender. Either way, my writing style can lead a reader to conjure up ideas as to my gender identity, posing an issue for online anonymity.

 So, to conclude, while race and gender both may pose as an issue for online anonymity, this relationship is not an equal one. In the context of our multicultural society, wherein many different ethnicities assimilate under one nation, race does not play a major role in its impact on anonymity.