Imagens do anonimato em plataformas digitais

Abstract

This thesis aims, overall, to understand characteristics of anonymity, as a technocultural phenomenon, in digital platforms. To achieve this goal, we considered specifically anonymous interface platforms. These services differ from popular networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, because they allow interaction between people without the need to use a profile picture, a name, or an avatar identifying the person. Exploratory moves included applying a questionnaire with Sarahah users, first-person browsing starting from the Instagram question box, and finally the excavation of other apps, in a media archeology approach. This allowed us to collect material for dissection, in order to understand how images of anonymity (re)appear in a technocultural context of a softwarized society, in which past and present coalesce and technical apparatuses function as mediators of the imagined world. Theoretical contribution included, among other authors, Auerbach (2012), Bergson (2006), Chun (2008), Fernández Porta (2018), Fischer (2013; 2015), Flusser (1985; 2008), Foucault (2001; 2013 ), Frois (2010), Kluitenberg (2014), Manovich (2013; 2014) and Sibilia (2016). As the investigation progressed, we noticed that anonymous interface digital platforms act as heterotopias, meaning these are spaces with their own rules, and which allow very particular forms of interaction. We identified characteristics such as confession of secrets, mutual affection, moral elasticity, mockery, and offense. These were all made possible due to the arrangement of interactive and visual elements on the digital territory.