Other users may drive how we behave online FangXiaNuo/Getty

The internet can be a vicious place. The way we can hide behind anonymity online has often been blamed for the web’s abundance of trolls, but an experiment using a fake football website shows it is the behaviour of those we encounter that has the most influence.

Until now, anonymity has been the prime suspect behind aggressive comments, Twitter mobs and targeted trolling. We know that offline, people are more likely to behave antisocially when they cannot be identified: a classic 1976 study found, for example, that masked trick-or-treaters stole more sweets.

Studies that have extended the theory online suggest that stripping us of our real-world names and dropping us into virtual communities gives us licence to unleash the inner animal.


But there’s conflicting evidence. Research in 2008 found that even when people comment under their real names on Facebook, they can say aggressive things. And another study found that abuse only dropped by 0.9 percentage points the year after South Korea introduced a 2007 law requiring users of the most popular websites to register with their national ID or a credit card.

“Changing levels of anonymity doesn’t have a direct impact on how civil people decide to be, at least in forums,” says Kevin Munger at New York University.

Fake football

To investigate further, Leonie Rösner and Nicole Krämer at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany created a fake website for German football fans, and recruited users from a local university.

They then planted a false news story on the site stating that people would no longer be allowed to stand up at football matches. At the time, the idea of banning standing terraces in stadiums was a hot discussion topic in Germany. The researchers then let participants loose on the site’s forum.

Half of these could comment without registering, whereas the others had to use their Facebook accounts to do so. To some participants, all commenters appeared anonymous, while others saw Facebook profiles for everyone.

The forum was also manipulated so that some saw a civil discussion, whereas others were greeted with an atmosphere rich in offensive words, sarcasm, insults and slander – and many exclamation marks.

Rösner and Krämer found that language used by people who were anonymous was not necessarily more aggressive than with people who could be identified. On its own, anonymity is not usually enough to turn people into trolls.

What does seem to make people mean, though, is the behaviour of those around them. The tone set by other commenters was linked to the likelihood that a participant would use aggressive language to support their points.

Social cues

This finding supports a growing body of research showing that social cues have a strong influence on our online behaviour. For example, Facebook users have been found to adopt the same patterns of behaviour as their contacts: if most of your network shares lots of news stories or photos, you are more likely to increase those activities too.

But the new findings are much more specific, says Adam Joinson at the University of Bath, UK. “What we didn’t know was that social norms can exert such an effect on aggressive behaviour.”

Anonymity isn’t off the hook, however: the pair found that aggression in comments was highest when a forum was both hostile in tone and completely anonymous.

“I find it fascinating,” says Alessandro Acquisti at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “To me, this research confirms that there is no single one-size-fits-all relationship between anonymity and human behaviour.”

“It’s interesting that the researchers conclude that anonymity enhanced the effect of normative aggression,” adds John Suler at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Back in 2004, he identified anonymity as one factor that drives people to become less inhibited online.

Setting a good example

“A person sees that other people think aggression is OK, and so they join in with the norm, reinforce each other, give each other new ideas about how to be aggressive, and even compete with each other in being aggressive,” says Suler.

Rösner and Krämer’s findings suggest that Twitter was right to introduce a “report” button for flagging up offensive content. Rösner says any method for cutting out a thread that has descended into aggression should help stop other users from getting “infected” by mob rule.

Fortunately, the behaviour of other people can affect us in good ways too. Last year, Munger created chatbots that chastised racist tweeters. He found that those who shared a tweeter’s racial identity and had a high social status – that is, many followers – were able to reset the tone of these users’ language and change their behaviour.

“If you create a social norm of increased civility, it becomes a virtuous cycle,” says Joinson. “There’s not necessarily an inbuilt tendency to be aggressive to other people or impolite. It’s about what other people are doing.”

Journal reference: Social Media + Society, DOI: 10.1177/2056305116664220

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