Another way in which online space conditioned the riot is through its commonplace cultures of
anonymity and pseudonymity. There are at least two modes of digital anonymity, and they accord to different visions of political liberty/agency. The same can be said
of online pseudonymity. The uptake of both by millions of users may precede a general/state realization that these gambits amount to actual political tactics/postions. Yet,
the spread of such phenomena in the digital sphere is nevertheless setting the stage
for the offline acts. Or, put otherwise, perhaps the government and
commentators have failed to discern the ideological dimension of the riots
because their understanding of the relationship between ‘real life’ an online
is impoverished. The ideology of the riots is playing out across the two fields and so far the state and corporate media have only
been looking for reasons in the latter.
We need a new understanding of political agency that takes into account
the liberties enacted online, with a view to understanding how these are being
enacted in and affecting real space. Until then, the riots will seem like a waking dream.
Whereas in the previous century anonymity was often seen as an alienating
condition that threatened self-worth now the vast majority of us are subscribing
to an equation of anonymity with political agency/liberty. Irrespective of ‘political’
realization on the part of individuals, most digitally connected people use and
abuse online psuedonymns – ie. filter email accounts, pseudonymous social
networks etc. This is a negative form of networked liberty/agency, an attempt
at ‘freedom from’ interference which finds its offline parallel to this
in masked demonstrators avoiding data capture by cctv cameras (and rioters looting fancy dress shops).
The positive sense of anonymous liberty, the ‘freedom to’ aspect, is
now commonplace and spreading: It is illegal filesharing. As a critical mass of
people do it the ideology of ‘freedom to’ is perpetuated. Despite its criminal/nonconformist
cachet this phenomenon has consumerist undertones – as unfettered gratification
of desire for commodities is pursued even above law of the land. The easy
anonymity afforded by the internet is not just contributing towards the economic
erosion of the entertainment industries, it is creating a much larger class of
consuming agents willing to break the law for entertainment purposes.
As Jaron Lanier notes, design underlies ethics
in the digital world and ‘People who can spontaneously invent a pseudonym in
order to post a comment on a blog or on YouTube are often remarkably mean’. Crucially,
according to him, this is not so much a function of human nature as it is the
result of bad digital architecutre. For there is such as thing as ‘troll-evoking’
design that facilitates ‘effortless, consequence-free, transient anonymity in
the service of a goal […] that stands entirely apart from one’s identity or
personality. Call it drive-by-anonymity’. Going further, Lanier worries that such designs can ‘accentuate negative
patterns of behavior or even bring about unforeseen social pathology’. In a speculative moment he displays great foresight vis a vis the London unrest.
‘It’s not crazy to worry that, with millions of people connected
through a medium that sometimes brings out their worst tendencies, massive,
fascist-style mobs could rise up suddenly. I worry about the next generation
of young people around the world
growing up with internet-based technology that emphasizes crowd aggregation, as
is the current fad. Will they be more likely to succumb to pack dynamics when
they come of age? [1]
Notwithstanding
the hyperbole about ‘fascist’ mobs, anonymous pack dynamics were certainly visible.
