Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Why Online Aggressors do not Hide Behind Anonymity

• In Event: 152 - Regular Session. Internet and Society

Abstract

Time and again, people have feared the “toxic” effect of anonymity on the outburst of aggression. In the age of Social Media, this fear culminates in major battles over online identity policies and the abolition of online anonymity. The phenomenon of offensive and emotional commenting (i.e. flaming) in Internet outrages, so-called online firestorms, fuel this battle: proponents of the abolition of anonymity promote the popular view that firestorms can only unleash because irrationally and aggressive commenters can protect themselves by anonymity. The current study, however, challenges this popular view. We assume that commenters strategically enforce digital social control by flaming norm violators such as corporate wrongdoings or political missteps. For flamers, the strategic use of anonymity can theoretically lower the probability to be sanctioned. However, we argue flamers employ anonymity only in particular contexts. Therefore, we hypothesize that anonymity only increases flaming in firestorms up to a certain point. This is because there are contexts in which commenters have incentives to not rely on anonymity and where anonymity is even inhibiting firestorms. We suggest such contexts are represented by degrees of ideological motivation of the commenters, status of the accused actor, and controversy of a debate. A longitudinal analysis of 1'601 online petitions from 2010 to 2013 including about 600'000 user commentaries accordingly undermines the view that abolition of online anonymity necessarily prevents the occurrence of collective online aggression such as firestorms. Ultimately, this study provides a novel methodological way to overcome previous obstacles for the investigation of firestorms.

Authors

• Lea Iris Stahel, University of Zurich

• Katja Rost, University of Zurich

• Bruno S. Frey, Zeppelin University