Disadvantages Of Anonymity In Social Media

Anonymity is something that affects everyone on social media, weather they are aware of it or not. Anonymity can be used as an outlet for people to vent out their frustration in a safe place and say whatever they want without being judged, but anonymity can also be used to threaten or harass other people without any consequences. People act differently online than they would in real life because they have some form of anonymity that changes the way they
People think that they can get away with saying anything online without any repercussions. “Writer Fights Online Harassment” is an article that illuminates how people act when they have some form of anonymity online. In the article, a man was violently and sexually insulting Ford, a journalist, on her public Facebook page. She ended up finding the man’s employer on his Facebook page and contacted him, showing him the comments that the man had posted on her page, and he ended up getting fired. She says that the reason she contacted the man’s employer is because, "I 'm sick and tired of men abusing …show more content…
Jon Ronson said in his book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, “They were allowed to leave. And they did, hurriedly.” (Ronson 180). All the men were publicly shamed in a court room for being clients of a prostitute which is why Ronson described them as “hurriedly” leaving when they were finally let free. They were not caught right away, and some of them even visited more than once, but when the list of clients that visited Alexis Wright, the prostitute, was released, the clients realized the consequences for what they were doing. As long as people don’t receive punishment or see the repercussions of their actions online, then they will not stop. Ford said that men abuse women online and always get away with it, which is why it continues to happen because they always get away with it so they continue to abuse women