The example that Nakamura gives about the dog on the internet: “on the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog; it is possible to “computer crossdress” I see as being an issue that is both positive and negative in regards to identity and the internet. In class on Wednesday we addressed if race can be excluded while on the internet or seen as an impossible issue to overcome on the internet. I do feel that in reality this is a very complicated issue to explore. Yes, like the dog quote points out having the protection of the computer allows anybody to allow a certain persona to be expressed online, however I think this is only an on the surface a seemingly positive opinion/ outlook on it all. I think that being on the internet is so much deeper than this.

The social constructions that are ingrained in our society influence the ways in which people choose to act and represent themselves on the internet. The fact that the social constructions and stereotypes affect certain peoples in the real world only makes me believe that despite the fact that maybe on a chat room someone can’t see your face that the issues of how to represent yourself come up.

I think that a lot of how you represent yourself has so much to do with what your purpose is when you go online. If your purpose is that you are looking for people to get to know to form significant relationships that will maybe lead to actual relationships than something like race might come up early on. Sondra mentioned in class that race did not seem to be an issue when she was online a few times; I feel that maybe this was an environment where people are not preoccupied with forming actual relationships but having a good time talking with people.

Obviously, this is my own opinion and I am not at all well researched on this topic. I guess what I am getting at is that having networks that are for certain races I feel would be so much more appealing than other sites. Maybe some people enjoy putting on fake personas but for those that don’t, having to adopt say a white persona could defeat the whole purpose of going on to a chat room. Many people I am sure enjoy being able to be someone else, but I am sure there are just as many that basically represent themselves truthfully besides a few tweaks and don’t want to have to be forced to adopt whiteness.
Being forced to adopt a way of being defeats the purpose of being able to go to sites and being able to interact with people as you please.

An interesting point addressed in Bailey’s paper was that people found that people felt freer to express their racist and bigoted views online. This is just one of the negatives of people knowing that they cannot be seen/found online. The incident that happened on LambdaMoo I keep thinking back to because incidents like this go on all the time. I mean in the sense that you may have a way in which you enjoy acting online and how you hope others would but not everybody does this. Users can ruin other people’s spaces. The issue of a space is crucial because at this point people are sharing spaces such as chat rooms. In the remediation article they talk about wanting to improve the spaces that people can go in to. I think that this is key to being able to allow people to not have to deal with prejudice, stereotypes and so on.