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Has the time come to abandon online anonymity?
EDITORIAL
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2013 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
The many, not the few We should look to our own behaviour before renouncing anonymity ANONYMOUS trolls. The phrase That seems a forlorn hope. has become commonplace in True online anonymity is hard to accounts of online abuse. It can achieve, but technically savvy seem as if anonymity protects internet users can get close to it – only scoundrels. Has the time and some will continue to hide come to abandon it? behind it as they savage others. The very idea will be anathema And there will always be some to some. Anonymity promises people who will simply shrug invaluable freedom from social, if they are unmasked. professional and political “Why people jump on a constraints. Without it, how bandwagon so easily readily would critics and whistleblowers speak up? Would the Arab online is worth looking into further” Spring have happened? If you believe in free speech, there are clear reasons to defend it. Perhaps we are focusing on Nonetheless, many of us have the wrong target. In every society already given up our anonymity there are a few sociopaths. What as our physical and digital lives makes the internet variety have become entangled. That suits particularly hard to deal with is internet companies, who want their knack for duping others into real people as their customers, not joining their campaigns. shadowy aliases and sock puppets. Many of these supporters are They also hope we will behave just jumping on a bandwagon, or better if we are readily identifiable. have been misled about the
nature of a purported dispute. Exactly why we are so quick to rush to judgement online, and to dehumanise the subject of our ire, is worth looking into further. But regardless of the reasons, the resulting mob greatly amplifies the effect on the target. As to limiting such behaviour, a more effective approach may be to induce a sense that our actions are being watched. This seems to encourage people to behave in line with prevailing social norms, and turns out to be surprisingly easy to achieve (see page 34). This is not without its Orwellian aspects. But social norms do not have to be imposed: they can be created by mutual agreement. Appealing for greater civility may seem naive, and certainly can’t by itself solve online abuse – but it’s a start. Perhaps we could all do with thinking twice before we click. n
Death of a beautiful idea THE idea that we live on a planet that takes care of us is intuitively appealing. So it’s no wonder that James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis – that the biosphere acts like a living organism, one that self-regulates to keep conditions just right for life – became so popular. Although rooted in science, Gaia appeals to the same side of human nature
that gods and guardian angels do. It’s a complex hypothesis, and was never going to be easy to test. But the evidence has been mounting since Lovelock put it forward 40 years ago, and now the first major review of that evidence has been conducted. The verdict? Gaia doesn’t hold up (see page 30). Gaia may yet bounce back. But if it has been struck a fatal blow, it
could be the most fitting example yet of what T. H. Huxley called “the great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact”. That’s science. Some will lament the demise of a beautiful, comforting idea, but Gaia should be remembered for being an elegant hypothesis that stimulated vital research on what is now (inelegantly) called the Earth system. There will be no tragedy in its passing. n
Asian space race shoots for Mars
was about international rivalry as well as national endeavour. Now China and India seem to be picking up where the US and the Soviet Union left off. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission will launch next month, having been fast-tracked after a Chinese mission failed. China, for its part, plans to put a rover on the moon in December.
Will we see a repeat of the space race, this time aiming for Mars? Competition drives innovation, to be sure. But the engineering and financial challenges involved in putting humans on Mars may be so huge as to daunt even the two Asian superpowers. Perhaps this time, collaboration will prove to be the winning strategy. n
“WE CHOOSE to go to the moon… because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills,” said US president John F. Kennedy in 1961. Fair enough. But the space race
26 October 2013 | NewScientist | 5
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2013 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
The many, not the few We should look to our own behaviour before renouncing anonymity ANONYMOUS trolls. The phrase That seems a forlorn hope. has become commonplace in True online anonymity is hard to accounts of online abuse. It can achieve, but technically savvy seem as if anonymity protects internet users can get close to it – only scoundrels. Has the time and some will continue to hide come to abandon it? behind it as they savage others. The very idea will be anathema And there will always be some to some. Anonymity promises people who will simply shrug invaluable freedom from social, if they are unmasked. professional and political “Why people jump on a constraints. Without it, how bandwagon so easily readily would critics and whistleblowers speak up? Would the Arab online is worth looking into further” Spring have happened? If you believe in free speech, there are clear reasons to defend it. Perhaps we are focusing on Nonetheless, many of us have the wrong target. In every society already given up our anonymity there are a few sociopaths. What as our physical and digital lives makes the internet variety have become entangled. That suits particularly hard to deal with is internet companies, who want their knack for duping others into real people as their customers, not joining their campaigns. shadowy aliases and sock puppets. Many of these supporters are They also hope we will behave just jumping on a bandwagon, or better if we are readily identifiable. have been misled about the
nature of a purported dispute. Exactly why we are so quick to rush to judgement online, and to dehumanise the subject of our ire, is worth looking into further. But regardless of the reasons, the resulting mob greatly amplifies the effect on the target. As to limiting such behaviour, a more effective approach may be to induce a sense that our actions are being watched. This seems to encourage people to behave in line with prevailing social norms, and turns out to be surprisingly easy to achieve (see page 34). This is not without its Orwellian aspects. But social norms do not have to be imposed: they can be created by mutual agreement. Appealing for greater civility may seem naive, and certainly can’t by itself solve online abuse – but it’s a start. Perhaps we could all do with thinking twice before we click. n
Death of a beautiful idea THE idea that we live on a planet that takes care of us is intuitively appealing. So it’s no wonder that James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis – that the biosphere acts like a living organism, one that self-regulates to keep conditions just right for life – became so popular. Although rooted in science, Gaia appeals to the same side of human nature
that gods and guardian angels do. It’s a complex hypothesis, and was never going to be easy to test. But the evidence has been mounting since Lovelock put it forward 40 years ago, and now the first major review of that evidence has been conducted. The verdict? Gaia doesn’t hold up (see page 30). Gaia may yet bounce back. But if it has been struck a fatal blow, it
could be the most fitting example yet of what T. H. Huxley called “the great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact”. That’s science. Some will lament the demise of a beautiful, comforting idea, but Gaia should be remembered for being an elegant hypothesis that stimulated vital research on what is now (inelegantly) called the Earth system. There will be no tragedy in its passing. n
Asian space race shoots for Mars
was about international rivalry as well as national endeavour. Now China and India seem to be picking up where the US and the Soviet Union left off. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission will launch next month, having been fast-tracked after a Chinese mission failed. China, for its part, plans to put a rover on the moon in December.
Will we see a repeat of the space race, this time aiming for Mars? Competition drives innovation, to be sure. But the engineering and financial challenges involved in putting humans on Mars may be so huge as to daunt even the two Asian superpowers. Perhaps this time, collaboration will prove to be the winning strategy. n
“WE CHOOSE to go to the moon… because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills,” said US president John F. Kennedy in 1961. Fair enough. But the space race
26 October 2013 | NewScientist | 5