GOOD COMMUNICATION GONE BAD
A local university established an internal on-line forum
for a multicultural awareness project. The forum set out with the goal
of opening dialogue among a preselected group of students coming from
different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Forum topics were unlimited,
and participants were very frank in their discussions. Many students
and faculty used the forum as a tool for understanding and breaking
through stereotypes. Even some personal friendships were formed. The
university decided to expand the forum to the entire campus, and offered
forum participants the option of using technologies that would enable
them to communicate anonymously.
Several months into the forum, as it attracted more and
more participation, the tone of the discussions changed. Hateful and
threatening comments began to appear on the forum and some students
received intimidating messages at their personal e-mail addresses. Students
were offended and many began to fear for their well being, especially
since they were disclosing personal information about their religious
affiliation, cultural practices and daily life schedules. Several students
complained to the university.
Questions to Consider
- What responsibility does the university have to those individuals
to whom it promised anonymity? Should it have allowed the use of
such technologies for anonymous communications?
- What precautions should the university have taken when it expanded
the forum?
- What is the value of a person’s opinion if he/she is unwilling
to state it without hiding behind a veil of anonymity? How can one
be held accountable if anonymity prevents his/her identification?
- Beyond formally complaining to the university, what other steps
might the students take to protect themselves? To recapture the
openness and civility of the original forum?
This case was prepared by staff at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science as part of a project on "Anonymous
Communications on the Internet: Uses And Abuses" (see http://www.aaas.org/spp/anon),
funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. This case may
be downloaded and used for educational purposes.
