Social media outlets of all sorts are easily penetrated with falsified individuals and accounts. While advertising is one popular reason for creating these fake accounts, another is the ability to talk to someone in a manner that one would not do in person. This is more commonly known as cyberbullying. With smart devices, teens and children now have constant access to free social media sites in which they can connect to nearly everyone in their age range. Further, many of these social media sites make it significantly easy to create an anonymous or even completely fake profile. Unfortunately, many people have taken advantage of this freedom and have used it maliciously. In one personal example, I visited a girl’s Facebook profile, and noticed several very rude comments by one particular user on many of her pictures. This got me curious so I clicked on the user’s profile and noticed that it was very clearly being used only to harass this one girl. The picture was a model, and the profile was filled with bogus information. While the victim was able to delete some of the comments, as well as report the fake user (I also reported her), it was clear that Facebook’s actions were considerably slower than necessary to address this issue.
While my example is not as severe, the cases of cyberbullying causing suicide and other health problems is clear. The victims and the effects of cyberbullying on these victims is obvious and well publicized: low self-esteem, self-harm, and in the worst cases, suicide. The family and friends of this individual also fall victim as they lose a loved one prematurely . However, there are also many other negative effects that are not commonly addressed. The parents of the cyberbullies are also both a victim and guilty in this scenario. Many times, these parents are in complete denial of what their children have done. In a recent case of cyberbullying that unfortunately resulted in death, the father of one of the accused bullies states, “none of it is true… my daughter is a good girl and I am 100 percent sure that whatever they’re saying about my daughter isn’t true” (huffingtonpost). The denial in this man is both sympathetic and appaling. He will have to live the rest of his life as the father of the cyberbully whole inadvertently killed a teenage girl. However, he will also have to live in guilt as he had some degree of control over his daughter’s access to technology. Because the parents of cyberbullies are not directly related to their children's actions and yet they must suffer from what they have done, they are also a victim. However, they are also inadvertently guilty because they are responsible for the access their children have to the crucial weapon used in cyberbullying: the Internet.
Although both of these examples show how falsifying identities on the Internet can be negative, many will claim that different identities on the internet is not always a bad thing. In a blog post, “Why People Have Fake Facebook Profiles,” the author points out several scenarios for reasons as to why people have multiple online identities, none of which are particularly negative. One example is an author who has one account as his personal account and a second account under his pen name. Because wants to establish an online presence as an author, there are many people that only recognize him by his pen name. There is also much information that he would rather keep private in his personal life and not get involved in his business life. A second example, is “An 8-Year-Old Facebook Game Player.” Because there are some games that require an account on Facebook that are both appealing to adults as well as young children, children may need an account in order to play these games. (readwrite)
While both of these examples, as well as many of the others listed in the blog seem innocent and okay, there are still negative effects of creating these fake accounts. The first and most obvious is that it is simply against the Facebook rules. Facebook rules require that no one creates a false account and that all accounts can be matched to a single person. If an account is thought to be fake, Facebook can shut it down. While the risks of having a fake account shut down do not appear to be major, they could affect a person’s business (as with the pen name example) or they could simply be a nuisance cause confusion as to what accounts are real and what are not. In the Facebook game player example, the mother of the child mentioned that her daughter’s real Facebook account has been shut down and reinstated multiple times, even though the fake account has not had any issues. Therefore, because these fake accounts exist, they cause an inconvenience for others. Another possible effect is the different identities one must maintain online. Although the online identities may not be real, the people that are friends with those identities are most likely real. Therefore a person with multiple online identities must be willing to completely take on those identities in real life as well. For the examples in this blog, such as the pen name, that may not be an issue. However, for many others it could.
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