Most of us can agree that anonymity has its place. Like the name implies, Anonymous could not be effective if their identities were known. Citizens in repressive countries posting on Flickr would do well to keep their real names hidden. Yet another layer of complexity must be added to these considerations.
How do the rules of engagement change when we are aware that a person’s true self is not being revealed and, conversely, when the voice on the other side of the digital channel is entirely different from what they claim to be?
Recently, the blogosphere has been buzzing about Amina’s blog A Gay Girl in Damacus: An out Syrian lesbian’s thoughts on life, the universe and so on. For years this American-Syrian woman was an inspirational activist, her powerful writing touched the lives of her followers and those in the Middle East fighting for their rights. At the beginning of June Amina disappeared. Her cousin posted on the blog, claiming Amina had been captured and was being held in custody by the Secret Service. There was an outcry for her release, as her faithful followers worried about their heroine’s well-being. A search ensued, only to find…that no one in Damacus had ever heard of the woman. After some digital investigation, it turns out that Amina was in fact not a resolute gay woman fighting in her country for her rights, but a 40-year-old man in Scotland with a brilliant imagination and enough knowledge on the subject to breathe life into the blog. On June 12, Tom MacMaster came clean, posting an apology to his readers:
I never expected this level of attention. While the narrative voıce may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.
Despite the deceit, the blog gave a voice to the social issues in Syria. So why is it so uncomfortable to come to the realization that Amina was actually Tom? If he had a voice that could carry a message stronger under another pseudonym, does his true identity really matter?
Be someone else without leaving your couch
It’s somewhat easy to take on a new identity online, and I was curious to see what it took to create an alter ego. How hard could it really be? I sat back from my computer and imagined a purpose for my alter ego. The new persona had to be an attention grabber – a story could pass as a best-selling fiction novel, but could be sold under the “non-fiction” category. I’ve never been to the street in Egypt or Tunisia, so I could not realistically impersonate someone from an Arab activist. I had to create an identity I could relate to myself.
I came up with my disguise: I was a middle aged man with a rare auto immune disease. I had a heart attack ten years ago, making me lose my job as an ER doctor. I had treatments for hepatitis C five years ago, which was the result of a blood transfusion I had in the 1950s. The treatments instigated the autoimmune disease from remission, attacking vital organs and requiring a stem cell transplant – the first one of its kind in the United States. Afterwards, I caught the swine flu at the hospital. After a successful transplant, I’m still dealing with health issues resulting from all the chemo that my body had undergone.
Seems too unbelievable to be real? It wasn’t me, but I watched my father live this story, more or less. I’m a strong believer that fact is stranger than fiction. For years, I watched a loved one suffer. I had my own moments of despair, and I attempted to show him life beyond the pain (although I was not the one medicated and in pain). I had a vantage point on life in the face of death which was worth saying (granted, this exercise was not about stealing my father’s identity per se, so I changed the details for my alter ego).
I was ready to launch my alter ego. As a blog takes years to gain a readership and thus beyond the time span for a journalistic investigation, my goal was to create a Facebook and Twitter account which I could disseminate my view on life after disease. As with all passages into the digital world, this starts with creating an email account. True, email is an outdated technology for most of us, but it’s the first form of proof of a person’s digital existence. There are no blockers on Yahoo to verify the person to their identity, leaving me to create whatever name I desire.
I am a horrible liar. While Yahoo makes it easy to have a false identity, my imagination had a hard time stretching that far. I signed on to Yahoo, and the form to create a new account popped in front of me. What was the name of my alter ego? I came up with the name Steward. Steward what? I panicked on the last name, and tried to search my memory for my Grandmother’s maiden name, something I could remember – except I couldn’t remember. Moving down the list, other details hit me – what was Steven’s favorite uncle? What was the street he grew up on? After looking up a zip code in the middle of nowhere New York, I clicked the submit button, I received a welcome message … for my new yahoo.fr account. Crap. I should never work for the CIA.
I went on to create a Facebook account. Immediately I was asked to import my contacts from my email account. Except my alter ego knew no one. I was asked for the school, former jobs, and interests of my alter ego – all to search for potential connections for “Steward.” I had no friends, making my Facebook plan immediately a bust. With blogs and twitter, we don’t really need a support of personal friends to have a following. But for Facebook, a friend count of zero already looks specious. Plus setting up my information page was making me uncomfortable with the web of lies I was weaving.
Twitter was perfect. No need to have friends connected to the real world from the start, and it was a direct line to interact with my target community. I searched names for autoimmune organizations, and added research centers and found hashtags. My false identity’s mechanics were set.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
My undercover adventure as a different person soon turned into a nauseating experience. #alicebucketlist was trending on the Twitter, and I followed the lead. I clicked onto Alice’s blog, to find this introduction:
I’m 15 and I have terminal cancer. I’ve created a bucket list because there are so many things I still want to do in my life … some are possible, some will remain a dream. My blog is to document this precious time with my family and friends, doing the things I want to do. You only have one life … live it!
Alice’s story caught fire on the Internet, causing thousands of dollars to be donated towards cancer research and filling up the bone marrow donor list. This inspiration girl had seized my respect for her strength in the face of such despair. I wanted to respond with words of encouragement, but my uneasy gut response stopped me. While my sentiment was pure, how damaging would it be if she found out her supporter what not in fact a fellow fighter, but an impostor?
She was not the only one. Thousands of people tweeted of their struggles, and their strength to continue their fight against disease. They came online for support, to feel less alone. Even with watching my loved one lie in a hospital bed so many times, and even believing that there were things I would have done differently and a different attitude I would have taken if I was my father – I was not. Viewing hell in a first class seat and being in hell are two different things. Any tweet I had in return, and words of sincere condolence or encouragement (no matter how real) would remain hollow at the base.
My experiment with a false identity lasted a weekend. In that time, I received 5 followers and 2 direct tweets – from real and honest people – reaching out to help in “my” struggle. For me, the guilt became too intense, and I seriously do not know how Tom MacMaster’s consciouses let him continue his writing experiment for several years. If I did have a voice on the subject, what’s the point in misrepresenting my identity? I can’t believe in manipulating the network to have a more powerful voice is justified.
The two selves: digital and physical
The debate whether our digital selves are “real” is no longer a serious discussion. Most people have real digital connections and friendships online, and their online avatars are an extension of the self. If we ourselves believe that our interactions are real, don’t we have the same expectation for other people online?
Because our online selves are so intertwined with our actual selves, there are only a few reasons to inflate our online identity. To a much lesser degree, most people are familiar with the deception of online dating services – saying we are more attractive than we actually are (and even going as far as to upload someone else’s photo). In Tom’s case, digital activism is another example of impersonating a victim to give one side a stronger voice. It’s easy to become attached to political activism, criticising situations and dreaming of a better world if we could only take the reigns. As for my short-lived impersonation initiated out of journalistic inquiry (but apparently not the only incidence as such, as a housewife got caught blogging as a dying teenager with leukaemia), it’s what I know I could realistically do with the experience I have – but I could imagine others doing it to take control which otherwise is out of their hands. Offline it’s difficult to pull off a “catch me if you can” lifestyle. With a little imagination, online we can create the world and people we wished existed.
Yet going down this path creates a dissonance too great to bear when reality come crashing down and your IP address is tracked. While you are online pretending to live someone else’s nightmare, there are real people on the network who once they sign off deal with oppressive regimes or incurable illnesses. To claim that you can truly speak on their behalf, to say online “I know exactly how you feel” detracts from their journey and their voice.
A close outsider’s vantage point can have a place – especially if well written and inspirational. If there are perspectives on reality worth saying, speaking under one’s own name (or anonymously at minimum) makes the voice trustworthy.
If it’s a matter of creatively writing from the first person point of view, then bloggers have a responsibility to label their works as fiction based on true events. I can see how Tom from Scotland’s writing benefited from a certain voice in order to convey his message. But how many fictional books and movies based off true events have moved people? His blog could have been just as successful if it wasn’t based off of an initial lie.
When the digital world is so connected with the self, we have the right to know who is real – and when we are escaping reality.
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Photo Credits: Flickr CC centralasian; Mark Cummins; JustCallMe_♥Bethy♥
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