Online indentity has been a hot topic of mass media researchers. Some say people are more likely to attack others because of no face-to-face contact, while others say because the face-to-face contact is lacking, people tend to be more friendly.
I believe it depends on individual and situation, but I do notice that there's something out in the cybrespace somewhat regulating what people say and do.
People might think there's no self-regulation at all in the cyberspace. However, a news story that I read last year told me there might be still some regulations that forced people to behave accordingly, or at least apologize for inappropriate behavior.
Right after the Sichuan Earthquake, a Chinese girl from another province created a video and posted on Youtube. It was like a normal video that people created to share their music. However, instead of sharing music, she was sharing her complaint about how the whole country was grieving for those earthquake victims. She said in the video that Sichuan people should keep the grief to themselves because she's sick of everyone grieving for those dead people. She also stated that Sichuan people deserved the disaster.
As you can imagine, people got mad and started to search for who she was and everything about her. Within a few days, her identity as a university student, her social security numbers (as in China), her boyfriend's name, and even her school grades were made public. She not only received a lot of angry calls and angry comments online but also got criticized in her real life.
She posted another video later to apologize for what she did, and to ask for forgiveness from the earthquake victims, their families, and the whole nation.
This news may be forgotten by now, but I see the same thing happen over and over again, in China, in Taiwan, or even in the U.S.. My point is, online users might attack other users or celebrities because of no face-to-face contact, but because of the large amount of people online, and because of the easy access of the Internet, online users automatically form an environment to prevent such incident from happening again. Such regulation may not apply everytime when someone posts something ridiculous online, but I see these actions moving toward forming self-regulation. It might take a long time for online users to form such regulation of what they do or what they say, but at least there's something out there to regulate people not to do stupid things like the Chinese girl.
After all, would you do the same thing when you found out how badly the girl was criticized in real life and how much pressure she felt?
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