Anon pls: Anonymity and normativity in sexual abuse posts

Abstract

The paper considers the relationship between anonymity and normativity on different websites. The ‘accounts’ concept (speech patterns which help the actor to explain personal or anyone else’s unsuitable conduct in a situation under assessment) is used to analyze normativity. The author describes the modern discussion concerning anonymity on the Internet and gives an attempt to explore the anonymity continuum based on the cases of the «Podslushano» project and #yaneboyusskazat flash mob.The «Podslushano» community moderators publish anonymous stories of users on behalf of community while the #yaneboyusskazat posts are published on authors’ personal web pages. At the same time, in the flash mob community normativity is formed which affects the social acceptability. So the study provides a comparison between various factors defining normativity and social acceptability.The position of the website on the anonymity continuum can set a range of social acceptability of content to be published on that website as well as the degree of conformity to the group norms of the website.