In a previous post, I talked about the possibility of stereotypes fading away with the help of social media. Ultimately, I argued that this was unlikely. Well, here’s an article that bolsters my point. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a talk given by Lisa Nakamura at the South by Southwest Interactive conference that outlined several recent studies that have found new kinds of racism flourishing in global video game communities.
For instance, in China large numbers of users began earning a living playing Diablo 2, winning virtual weapons in the fantasy role-playing game and selling their online loot to people in the United States who did not have time to play as many hours to arm their characters. Many of the players chose to play as a female dwarf, a class in the game that can more easily win treasure on solo missions. And so other players began killing all dwarfs in the game, often adding anti-Chinese slurs in the chat section of the game as they did, says Ms. Nakamura.
The article goes on to point to the role of anonymity in the proliferation of racism on the Internet, a topic we’ve talked about in the course (especially in relation to cyberbullying). However, can we really blame anonymity? In the example that Nakamura gives, anonymity is important, but can we really guarantee that being able to see a profile picture of someone will make people less likely to be racist? If there’s one thing that became apparent for me while reading your papers on your social media presence its that the vast majority of you have some doubts about whether or not the people you are interacting with online are really who they say they are. Therefore, we only friend people we know in real life. So, how does adding a profile picture and some personal information to a social interaction based solely on the Internet equal a lack of anonymity?
