Saturday, August 10, 2019

Anonymous

One of the biggest problems on the Internet is the use of anonymous reviews. Take this example. The person posted a negative review with a video demonstrating the defect. This anonymous reviewer then posted:

Next time, learn the difference between landscape and  portrait when using your toy idiot phone !! Who want (sic) to look at a "vertical TV" video on a standard 16x9 display ??

First the grammar is wrong, but oftentimes it is. Second, this character is demeaning the reviewer for not recording in a fashion the reviewer deems appropriate. My suggestion again is eliminate anonymous reviews.  Let us know who is making such a statement. Just a thought. 

Frankly it is the explosion of people like this which makes the Internet so useless.

But then again there is Linkedin. As the NY Times notes:
 
The site hasn’t proved especially useful for mainstreaming disinformation, for example, nor is it an obvious staging ground for organized harassment campaigns. It is unique among its social media peers in that it has not spent the last five years in a state of wrenching crisis. And perhaps even more importantly, LinkedIn is not, in the popular imagination, a force for radicalization, a threat to democracy, a haven for predators, an environment that encourages mob behavior, or even a meeting place for pot stirrers. 

Why? Simply, in my opinion, everyone knows who you are. There is no anonymous, no fake names, you are a real person, other than the ads which you neglect anyhow. I have been on LinkedIn for over ten years, since the beginning. I have never posted anything, possibly thanked someone, and overall find it useless. But since you know who is saying what, as does anybody else, one is careful in what they say. Thus nothing like the character above from Amazon.

Again, if you want things toned down, make people use their real names.