On The Issues Of Anonymity And Autonym In Cyber Society

With the rapid development of the Internet, cyber society is integrated more tightly with the real world. In essence, anonymity and autonym in cyber society corresponds to the mapping between behavior agent’s identities in cyber society and in the real world, which constitute the core correlation issue of cyber world and real world. This paper consists of a series of studies on the anonymity and autonym in cyber society. It focused on two basic perspectives:one is a microscopic perspective of human behavior, the other is a macroscopic one on the evolution of social system. This study proposed four models for theoretical analysis and empirical testing for three research problems.The major contributions are as follows:(1)Put forward the concept of network anonymity, and propose five measures and an evaluation model to evaluate it.Network anonymity measure can be used to reflect the difficulty in identifying one’s real identity based on the information in cyber society. In other words, it refers to how indiscernible one’s real identity is.This concept has two significant meanings. One is to defy the binary logic that one’s identity on the Internet either anonymous or non-anonymous. Instead, this concept holds the idea that one’s anonymity in cyber society can be measured by a continuous variable between0and1, which means that network anonymity become a measurable variable with different degrees. Therefore, studies on network anonymity have entered into a new era. The other is to provide measures and methods to evaluate one’s anonymity on the Internet.(2) Network anonymity is measured by two variables. This study proposed a conceptual model and an empirical test on relations between network anonymity, risk perception, and self-disclosure tendency in Sina Weibo.The present study suggests two types of network anonymity variables:one is objective anonymity, an objective one measured by how difficult it is to identify the user based on his/her personal information disclosed on Internet; the other is perceived anonymity, one’s subjective perception of how anonymous he/she is. Through an empirical test, it is proven that two types of anonymity are indeed correlated. C-D gap theory is used when analyzing how one’s bounded rationality and uncertainty about the environment affects his/her self-disclosure tendency. Wemade an attempt to include bounded rationality and uncertainty into one variable, that is, risk perception, and to verify the mediating effect risk perception has between network anonymity and self-disclosure tendency. Based on Sina Weibo, a conceptual model is created to describe the relations among network anonymity, risk perception, and self-disclosure tendency. The empirical test proves that network anonymity may not simply increase one’s self-disclosure tendency. Instead, it shows more complex features in different contexts.(3)Discuss the effectiveness to apply real-name system to regulate speech on the InternetThere have been hot debates about whether real name system should be applied to regulate speech environment on the Internet. Most previous studies were debating on this issue, while our study, based on a game model, analyzed what strategies supervisors and users resort to on different occasions. The study also includes a discussion on how effective real name system is, in various contexts, to regulate improper remarks on the Internet. The game theory proves that real name system can only play a limited role in regulating online speech. Indeed, it can supervise cyber environment to some degree, but it is not exclusive and absolutely effective. To regulate online speech, there may be alternative methods other than real name system.(4)Build a theoretical framework for the evolution of cyber society, and discuss the essence, evolution and fundamentals of real-name system.The present study discussed the mechanism of how real-name system was brought into being and how it developed, based on how cyber society evolved. According to some theories in new institutional economics, we analyzed and categorized the cyber society evolution theories from three perspectives:mental, material and social. Then we created a theoretical framework and presented a general processes for showing the evolution. Based on these theories, the study continues to discuss the mechanism of its evolution. The essence of real-name system is to shift one’s responsibilities and interests for his/her words and deeds online to the person in the real world. The fundamental driving force of the emergence and development of real-name system is to reduce the cost of information in cyber society. The evolution has two features: both bottom-up inducement and top-down enforcement. In essence, real name system is just a tool, which is only a small part in the evolution of management system online. Only when it is combined with corresponding laws, rules, and technical mechanism can it clarify one’s responsibilities and keep the cyber society in order.