Social Networking Anonymity – Literature Review
When I began my research into anonymity and privacy in Library 2.0 social networking efforts, I expected to find blogs and articles by the usual suspects: Michael’s Casey & Stephens, Jenny Levine, John Blyberg, etc. But much of the information I’m finding doesn’t come from the world of library literature – it comes from the worlds of computer science & design and internet security. This shouldn’t surprise me, as I’ve long held the belief that – given the issues we face in modern librarianship – librarians need to be much farther ranging in our search for guidance and answers to the pressing questions that we face.
Anonymity in social networking environments is addressed in two basic ways: its benefits and its dangers. Many of the resources I’ve found that explore the benefits of anonymity focus on the role of social networking in the realm of primary education. The paper, “Creating a Psychologically Safe Online Space for a Student-Generated Questions Learning Activity via Different Identity Revelation Modes,” shows how an anonymous question-and-answer environment can alleviate the embarrassment and stigma that so many students have towards asking questions in front of their peers. In an anonymous online environment, students can ask questions of their teachers without the fear of appearing stupid. This idea has obvious applications in libraries and how we offer information exchange services to our users. The other benefit of anonymity in online social environments is the protection of user privacy – again, an issue central to the operations and values of libraries.
The dangers of anonymity are sometimes easy to overlook. It’s not just the well-documented phenomena of enabling (and sometimes encouraging) trolling behavior, and predatory behavior online (the same anonymity that protects users from being identified by unauthorized parties also lets predators hide their identities from the people they’re stalking); there’s also a danger in that many social network users believe that anonymity provides more protection of their identity than is actually the case. For example, in a report titled, “A Practical Attack to De-Anonymize Social Network Users”, the authors of the report show how “information about the group memberships of a user (i.e., the groups of a social network to which a user belongs) is often sufficient to uniquely identify this user, or, at least, to significantly reduce the set of possible candidates” using common techniques to steal web browser histories. In other words – anonymity doesn’t mean your identity is safe. This is a serious consideration for libraries as they implement social networking strategies for their employees and users.
I began my research with the resources listed on our Social Media Guidelines assignment, and I also plan on using some or all of the following articles:
Bisson, Casey. 2006. The future of privacy and libraries. MaisonBisson.com. http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11099/the-arrival-of-the-stupendous/ (accessed March 28, 2010).
Blyberg, John. 2005. ILS customer bill-of-rights. Blyberg.net. http://www.blyberg.net/2005/11/20/ils-customer-bill-of-rights/ (accessed March 28, 2010).
Buschman, John, Mark Rosenzweig and Kathleen de la Pena McCook. 2007. “On Anonymity in Libraryland Blogging.” Progressive Librarian 3-7. OmniFile Full Text Mega, WilsonWeb (accessed March 28, 2010).
Casey, Michael and Michael Stephens. 2008. The transparent library: Coping with anonymity. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6515878.html (accessed March 28, 2010).
Ibid. 2008. The transparent library: Six signposts on the way. Library Journal. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6611609.html (accessed March 28, 2010).
Gritzalis, Stefanos. Enhancing web privacy and anonymity in the digital era. Information Management & Computer Security. 12, no. 3. 2004 : 255-288.
Grohol, Johm M. 2006. Anonymity and online community: Identity matters. A List Apart Magazine. No. 214 (April 4, 2006). http://www.alistapart.com/articles/identitymatters (accessed March 28, 2010).
Kosovsky, Bob. 2007. Anonymity for library staff?. Library 2.0. http://www.library20.org/forum/topics/515108:Topic:35567 (accessed March 28, 2010).
Levine, Jenny. 2005. The online library user manifesto. ALA TechSource. American Library Association. http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2005/11/the-online-library-user-manifesto.html (accessed March 28, 2010).
Litwin, Rory. 2006. The central problem of library 2.0: Privacy. Library juice. http://libraryjuicepress.com/blog/?p=68 (accessed March 28, 2010).
Narayanan, Arvind and Vitaly Shmatikov. 2009. De-anonymizing social networks. Austin, Texas: The Univeristy of Texas at Austin.
Perez, Sarah. 2008. The end of online anonymity. ReadWriteWeb. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_end_of_online_anonymity.php (accessed March 28, 2010).
Reeder, Franklin S. and Paul Alan Levy. 2005. “Protecting Anonymity on the Internet.” Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom. 54, no. 5: 209, 257-64. OmniFile Full Text Mega, WilsonWeb (accessed March 28, 2010).
Timmer, John. 2010. Browser history hijack + social networks = lost anonymity. Ars Technica (February 24, 2010). http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/02/browser-history-hijack-social-networks-lost-anonymity.ars (accessed March 28, 2010).
Wondracek, Gilbert, Thorsten Holz, Engin Kirda, and Christopher Kruegel. 2010. A practical attack to de-anonymize social network users. iSecLab.
Yu, Fu-Yun and Yu-Hsin Liu. 2009. “Creating a psychologically safe online space for a student-generated questions learning activity via different identity revelation modes.” British Journal of Educational Technology 40, no. 6: 1109-23. OmniFile Full Text Mega, WilsonWeb (accessed March 28, 2010).
JohnK