3.2 The Ethics of Identity and Community on personal Networking solutions

Social networking technologies start a brand new variety of ethical room by which individual identities and communities, both ‘real’ and virtual, are built, presented, negotiated, handled and done. Consequently, philosophers have actually analyzed SNS in both terms of these uses as Foucaultian “technologies regarding the self” (Bakardjieva and Gaden 2012) that facilitate the construction and gratification of individual identification, plus in regards to the distinctive types of public norms and practices that are moral by SNS (Parsell 2008).

The ethical and metaphysical problems produced by the synthesis of digital identities and communities have actually attracted much interest that is philosophical

(see Introna 2011 and Rodogno 2012). Yet because noted by Patrick Stokes (2012), unlike previous kinds of network in which privacy while the construction of alter-egos had been typical, SNS such as for example Twitter increasingly anchor user identities and connections to real, embodied selves and offline ‘real-world’ networks. Yet SNS still enable users to handle their self-presentation and their networks that are social means that offline social areas in the home, college or work usually usually do not allow. The end result, then, is an identification grounded when you look at the person’s material truth and embodiment but more clearly “reflective and aspirational” (Stokes 2012, 365) in its presentation. parship This raises lots of ethical concerns: very first, from exactly just just what way to obtain normative guidance or value does the content that is aspirational of SNS user’s identity primarily derive? Do identification shows on SNS generally speaking represent the exact same aspirations and mirror the same value pages as users’ offline identity performances? Do they show any differences that are notable the aspirational identities of non-SNS users? Will be the values and aspirations made explicit in SNS contexts pretty much heteronomous in beginning compared to those expressed in non-SNS contexts? Perform some more explicitly aspirational identity shows on SNS encourage users to make a plan to really embody those aspirations offline, or do they have a tendency to damage the inspiration to do this?

An additional SNS sensation of relevance this is actually the perseverance and public memorialization of Twitter pages after the user’s death; not merely does this reinvigorate a wide range of traditional ethical questions regarding our ethical duties to honor and keep in mind the dead, in addition it renews questions regarding whether our ethical identities can continue after our embodied identities expire, and whether or not the dead have actually ongoing passions within their social existence or reputation (Stokes 2012).

Mitch Parsell (2008) has raised issues concerning the unique temptations of ‘narrowcast’ social media communities which are “composed of these similar to your self, whatever your viewpoint, character or prejudices. ”

(41) He worries that among the list of affordances of internet 2.0 tools is a propensity to tighten our identities to a set that is closed of norms that perpetuate increased polarization, prejudice and insularity. He admits that the theory is that the many-to-many or one-to-many relations enabled by SNS permit contact with a better number of views and attitudes, however in practice Parsell worries that they often times have the effect that is opposite. Building from de Laat (2006), who implies that people in digital communities accept a distinctly hyperactive design of interaction to compensate for diminished informational cues, Parsell claims that within the lack of the total selection of individual identifiers obvious through face-to-face contact, SNS could also market the deindividuation of individual identification by exaggerating and reinforcing the importance of single provided faculties (liberal, conservative, homosexual, Catholic, etc. ) that lead us to see ourselves and our SNS connections more as representatives of an organization than as unique people (2008, 46).

Parsell additionally notes the presence of inherently pernicious identities and communities that could be enabled or improved by some online 2.0 tools—he cites the exemplory instance of apotemnophiliacs, or would-be amputees, whom utilize such resources to generate mutually supportive systems for which their self-destructive desires get validation (2008, 48). Associated issues have already been raised about “Pro-ANA” web web internet sites that offer mutually supportive companies for anorexics searching for information and tools to enable them to perpetuate and police disordered identities (Giles 2006; Manders-Huits 2010). While Parsell thinks that one Web 2.0 affordances enable corrupt and destructive kinds of individual freedom, he claims that other online 2.0 tools provide matching solutions; for instance, he defines Facebook’s reliance on long-lived pages connected to real-world identities as an easy way of fighting deindividuation and advertising accountable share to the city (2008, 54).