Assessing Anonymous Communication on the Internet: Policy Deliberations

Anonymous communication on the Internet offers new opportunities but has ill-understood risks. This article helps to ground the policy debates by examining some fundamental aspects of anonymous social behavior and current controversies over anonymous communications. It is a companion to the article in this issue, "Anonymous Communication Policies for the Internet: Results and Recommendations of the AAAS Conference." It examines the social character of anonymous communication and the ways that anonymous communication has played important roles for professionals such as journalists and the police. It also explains some of the new technological supports for anonymous communication on the Internet. The openness, decentralization, and transnational character of the Internet challenge the efficacy of traditional control mechanisms and have raised issues related to accountability, law enforcement, security and privacy, governmental empowerment, and e-commerce. Yet, to ban or restrict all anonymous communication online because of the harms it could bring would deny its benefits to those people who may legitimately gain from it. This article helps to understand how to balance these positions.     

Assessing Anonymous Communication on the Internet: Policy Deliberations

Anonymous communication on the Internet offers new opportunities but has ill-understood risks. This article helps to ground the policy debates by examining some fundamental aspects of anonymous social behavior and current controversies over anonymous communications. It is a companion to the article in this issue, "Anonymous Communication Policies for the Internet: Results and Recommendations of the AAAS Conference." It examines the social character of anonymous communication and the ways that anonymous communication has played important roles for professionals such as journalists and the police. It also explains some of the new technological supports for anonymous communication on the Internet. The openness, decentralization, and transnational character of the Internet challenge the efficacy of traditional control mechanisms and have raised issues related to accountability, law enforcement, security and privacy, governmental empowerment, and e-commerce. Yet, to ban or restrict all anonymous communication online because of the harms it could bring would deny its benefits to those people who may legitimately gain from it. This article helps to understand how to balance these positions.     

Legal Issues in Anonymity and Pseudonymity

The regulation of anonymous and pseudonymous communications promises to be one of the most important and contentious Internet-related issues of the next decade. Resolution of this controversy will have direct effects on the freedom of speech, the nature of electronic commerce, and the capabilities of law enforcement. The legal resolution of the anonymity issue also is closely bound up with other difficult and important legal issues: campaign finance laws, economic regulation, freedom of speech on the Internet generally, the protection of intellectual property, and general approaches to privacy and data protection law. The legal constraints on anonymous communication, and the constitutional constraints on those who would regulate it further, thus should be considered in tandem with the policies animating regulation and also their side effects.     

Interactivity in online chat: Conversational cues and visual cues in the service recovery process

Use of both verbal and nonverbal cues in computer-mediated communication can influence customers’ perceptions and their behavioral intentions. Drawing on the compensation effect theory, this study investigates how verbal and nonverbal cues used by customer service agents during online service recovery processes affect customers’ perceptions of service chat agents’ warmth and competence and their willingness to cooperate with a service agent to complete the service recovery process. A 2 (message interactivity cues: high vs. low) × 2 (visual cues: high vs. low) between-subjects experimental design is utilized to identify the main and interaction effects of verbal and visual nonverbal cues used in online communications on customers attitudes and behaviors. Results show that use of verbal cues leads to higher perception of a chat agent’s competence, but lower perception of a chat agent’s warmth while use of visual nonverbal cues results in higher warmth perceptions but lower competence perceptions. The interaction effect of verbal and visual nonverbal cues indicates that visual nonverbal cues have a compensatory effect on message interactivity and vice versa, such that customer-perceived warmth and competence are prone to trade-offs between verbal cues and visual nonverbal cues. Furthermore, perceived warmth and competence mediate the indirect effects of verbal and nonverbal cues on customers’ cooperation intentions. Theoretical and practical implications of use of verbal and nonverbal cues during online communications in service recovery processes are discussed.     

Consumer attitudes towards mobile marketing in the smart phone era

This exploratory online questionnaire-based study confirms the findings from earlier studies in the pre-smart phone era regarding consumers’ negative attitudes towards mobile marketing communications. This study shows that these attitudes persist despite increasing frequency of use and increased functionality of mobile phones in the smart phone era. Consumers perceive their mobile device to be for personal communication, and prefer to be able to exercise control over their interaction with organisations. Findings suggest that acceptance can be enhanced by permission marketing, trust-building, creating a sense of being in control, and useful and entertaining website content. Accordingly, pull technologies seem to hold particular promise for mobile marketing communications. This study, therefore, proceeds to explore use of and attitudes towards an important pull technology, QR codes. QR codes, two-dimensional bar codes, can be scanned to provide access to websites, information and applications. Despite their potential, uptake is low. Users in this study who had scanned a QR code had used them to access a variety of different content on different types of items and in different locations. The most frequently accessed type of content was information on a web site, the two most common locations for a scanned QR code were a newspaper or magazine advert, or outdoor advert or poster, and the two most common locations at which scanning was performed were in the street and at home. Ease of use, utility and incentives are drivers to continued use whilst lack of knowledge about how-to scan or of the benefits of QR codes may hinder adoption. Recommendations are offered for practice and for further research.     

Science 2.0:科学活动新范式

互联网的诞生与发展,全方位改变了人类的社会生活,Science 2.0概念的提出,实际上是就互联网对科学活动影响的初步概括,随着互联网技术的进步,科学交流不断获得新的工具和平台,传统的科学活动正面临更开放的环境,并可能引发整个科学系统的变革。Science 2.0让个体研究走向在线协作,使成果交流变成互动探索,成果刊布也由纸媒传播走向即时在线,全面提升了科学交流的时效性和广泛性。科学活动因互联网发展而正在发生的这一重大变革,应当引起足够的重视和研究。     

Being old in an always-on culture: Older people's perceptions and experiences of online communication

Research on the digital divide has moved beyond connectivity to skills and usage disparities. Yet for many older people lack of connectivity remains a challenge, and for those who do have access, skills and usage remain an issue. We report findings of an in-depth qualitative study of older people's perceptions of online communications and also their actual experiences. Findings indicate that older people who are already socially well connected benefit from online communication more than those who are not.     

Using Aristotle’s theory of friendship to classify online friendships: a critical counterview

In a special issue of “Ethics and Information Technology” (September 2012), various philosophers have discussed the notion of online friendship. The preferred framework of analysis was Aristotle’s theory of friendship: it was argued that online friendships face many obstacles that hinder them from ever reaching the highest form of Aristotelian friendship. In this article I aim to offer a different perspective by critically analyzing the arguments these philosophers use against online friendship. I begin by isolating the most common arguments these philosophers use against online friendship and proceed to debunk them one by one by pointing out inconsistencies and fallacies in their arguments and, where needed, offering empirical findings from media and communication studies that offer a more nuanced view on online friendships. I conclude my analysis by questioning the correctness of the application of the Aristotelian theory of friendship by the critics of online friendship: in my view, the critics are applying the Aristotelian theory to online friendships in a rather narrow and limited way. Finally, I conclude my thesis by proposing that in the rapidly changing online landscape, a one-size-fits-all application of the Aristotelian theory on friendship is not sufficient to accurately judge the multitude of relationships that can exist online and that the various positive and valuable elements of online friendships should also be acknowledged and analyzed.     

Back to the Future: How Transportation Deregulatory Policies Foreshadow Evolution of Communications Policies

The legal regulatory regimes for communication technologies evolve with technological, economic, and social change. This article asserts that, in the United States, the evolution of the legal regulatory regimes for the communications sector is following a trajectory breathtakingly similar to that already traversed by the transportation sector. As both sectors provide infrastructures essential to the nation and share similar economic attributes of networks, technological evolution within each has generated many of the same core issues. By recognizing this historical reality, we can tap valuable experience in transportation policy to better inform prospective policy change in communications. In this way, future communications policy need not be radical—whether intentionally or unintentionally—nor totally untested, thereby enhancing its potential for sustainability.     

Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communities,A Comparative Analysis

In this article we combine the perspectives of sociology and computer science to compare face-to-face (f2f) and computer-mediated communications (CMC) from the viewpoint of their respective abilities to form and sustain communities. We also identify a third type of community-a hybrid-that is based on a combination of faceto-face (f2f) and CMC, or off- and online communications. The article thus in effect addresses an oft-asked question: Can virtual communities be "real", have the same basic qualities as f2f communities? The article is exploratory, because much of the necessary evidence has not yet been generated, and the relevant technologies are rapidly changing.     

Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communities, A Comparative Analysis

In this article we combine the perspectives of sociology and computer science to compare face-to-face (f2f) and computer-mediated communications (CMC) from the viewpoint of their respective abilities to form and sustain communities. We also identify a third type of community-a hybrid-that is based on a combination of faceto-face (f2f) and CMC, or off- and online communications. The article thus in effect addresses an oft-asked question: Can virtual communities be "real", have the same basic qualities as f2f communities? The article is exploratory, because much of the necessary evidence has not yet been generated, and the relevant technologies are rapidly changing.     

A case analysis of the adoption of Internet applications by local sporting bodies in New Zealand

As a unique type of community-based organisation (CBO), local sporting clubs are typically run by volunteers who regularly carry out the playing, coaching and administrative roles that keep them functioning. Through a case study involving a New Zealand hockey association, this article examines the extent to which sporting clubs use Internet applications by examining their use of email (for communications), club websites (for information provision) and online statistics (transactions). Rogers’ (2003) Innovation-Decision Process provides the theoretical framework for the study.     

交流可见度视角下在线知识共享网络用户认知和情感研究

[目的/意义]探索不同交流可见度环境对在线知识共享网络用户认知和情感的影响,旨在推动知识共享和知识创新实践。[方法/过程]利用质性研究方法开展研究,先设计了访谈提纲,然后利用访谈法搜集数据,再利用主题分析法分析数据。[结果/结论]分析了匿名环境和实名环境对用户认知和情感的影响,识别了7个主题;分析了即时交流环境和非即时交流环境对用户认知和情感的影响,识别了5个主题;分析了一对一、多对多、大众传播、一对多交流可见度环境对用户认知和情感的影响,识别了7个主题;分析了知识搜寻行为可见/不可见的交流环境对用户认知和情感的影响,识别了4个主题。文章为在线知识共享网络用户研究提供了新视角。     

The reality of friendship within immersive virtual worlds

In this article I examine a recent development in online communication, the immersive virtual worlds of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). I argue that these environments provide a distinct form of online experience from the experience available through earlier generation forms of online communication such as newsgroups, chat rooms, email and instant messaging. The experience available to participants in MMORPGs is founded on shared activity, while the experience of earlier generation online communication is largely if not wholly dependent on the communication itself. This difference, I argue, makes interaction in immersive virtual worlds such as MMORPGs relevantly similar to interaction in the physical world, and distinguishes both physical world and immersive virtual world interaction from other forms of online communication. I argue that to the extent that shared activity is a core element in the formation of friendships, friendships can form in immersive virtual worlds as they do in the physical world, and that this possibility was unavailable in earlier forms of online interaction. I do, however, note that earlier forms of online interaction are capable of sustaining friendships formed through either physical or immersive virtual world interaction. I conclude that we cannot any longer make a sharp distinction between the physical and the virtual world, as the characteristics of friendship are able to be developed in each.     

Silk Road: The market beyond the reach of the state

Between February 2011 and October 2013, Silk Road operated the largest and most sophisticated anonymous online marketplace for illegal drugs. More than a business venture, it was designed for anarcho-capitalist resistance to state power. The primary research question of this inquiry is: Can a stable market, defying the state, emerge under conditions of online anonymity? The article shows that Silk Road was built on a contradiction. On the one hand, strong cryptographic anonymity was embraced because it facilitated hiding from the state. On the other hand, the very same cryptographic anonymity made it difficult to impose rules and create a stable market. Silk Road sought to cultivate subcultural norms to ensure proper behavior in face of anonymity but they were not strong enough to control the behavior enabled by its architecture.     

Towards efficient communications in federated learning: A contemporary survey

In the traditional distributed machine learning scenario, the user’s private data is transmitted between clients and a central server, which results in significant potential privacy risks. In order to balance the issues of data privacy and joint training of models, federated learning (FL) is proposed as a particular distributed machine learning procedure with privacy protection mechanisms, which can achieve multi-party collaborative computing without revealing the original data. However, in practice, FL faces a variety of challenging communication problems. This review seeks to elucidate the relationship between these communication issues by methodically assessing the development of FL communication research from three perspectives: communication efficiency, communication environment, and communication resource allocation. Firstly, we sort out the current challenges existing in the communications of FL. Second, we have collated FL communications-related papers and described the overall development trend of the field based on their logical relationship. Ultimately, we discuss the future directions of research for communications in FL.     

Information Privacy in the Marketspace: Implications for the Commercial Uses of Anonymity on the Web

While there is no question that the commercial development of the World Wide Web is still in its infancy and growing rapidly, this development faces a serious barrier to ultimate commercialization. In this article we develop the argument that the primary barrier to the successful commercial development of the Web is the current lack of consumer trust in this new commercial medium. This lack of trust is engendered primarily by the industry's documented failure to respond satisfactorily to mounting consumer concerns over information privacy in electronic, networked environments. We examine how such concerns are affecting the growth and development of consumer-oriented commercial activity on the World Wide Web and investigate the implications of these concerns for potential industry response. In the short run, the commercial development of the Web depends on giving consumers the opportunity to be anonymous when engaging in information exchanges and online transactions. Ultimately, however, commercial Web providers must come to realize that the Internet dramatically shifts the balance of power between a business and its customers, and therefore, radical new business strategies will be required for long-term success. Because the Web offers unprecedented opportunities for interacting with customers, strategies that take advantage of the medium's unique features are likely to reap important rewards in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. Therefore, in the long run, the most effective way for commercial Web providers to develop profitable exchange relationships with online customers is to gain consumer trust by allowing the balance of power to shift toward more cooperative interactions between firms and their customers.     

从礼貌原则和得体性看英汉交际中的一些失误

礼貌和得体是语言交际成功的原则和保障。本文从leech的礼貌原则入手,结合了语言使用的得体性要求,采用了英汉对比的办法,分析了英汉交际中的一些具体的语用失误,提出交际中要得体地使用礼貌语言的要求,为礼貌原则提供了补充和深化,同时也为成功的交际提供了保证。     

Online news comments: Social network and emergent public

Abstract

The research on online news comments has been dominated by a normative approach and has centered on media engagement. Normativity and media dominance have also featured big in the theoretical discussions on the public sphere. This article presents a case study of online news comments, combining a novel methodological testing of social network hypotheses to examine user–user interactions in online comments with a conceptual discussion of the potential connections between social network research and theories of the public. The social network analysis in this study indicated that users (online commentators) do not constitute highly dense networks, although their relations can be studied as social networks. However, this analysis can only explore limited features of this online phenomenon and requires complementary methods. From a conceptual perspective, this article confirms the role of shared issue for a potential public and also emphasizes the importance of context, actors, and meanings for understanding the public.