Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Tor Users and Wikipedians

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Citation: Andrea Forte, Nazanin Andalibi, Rachel Greenstadt (2017) Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Tor Users and Wikipedians. Proceedings of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) (RSS)
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Tor Users and Wikipedians
Download: http://www.andreaforte.net/ForteCSCW17-Anonymity.pdf
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Summary

Describe related work on:

  • participation in open collaboration projects (defined as “an online environment that (a) supports the collective production of an artifact (b) through a technologically mediated collaboration platform (c) that presents a low barrier to entry and exit and (d) supports the emergence of persistent but malleable social structures”)
  • online privacy and perceptions of risk
  • anonymous online participation.

Interviewed 12 Tor users who participated in collaborative projects and 11 Wikipedia editors with privacy concerns to address to research questions.

RQ1. What kinds of threats do contributors to open collaboration projects perceive?


Threats:

  • Surveillance/Loss of privacy (Tor: 9, WP: 3)
  • Loss of employment/opportunity
  • Safety of Self/Loved Ones
  • Harassment/Intimidation (WP: 8, Tor: 1)
  • Reputation Loss

Sources:

  • Governments (WP: 3, Tor: 9)
  • Businesses (WP: 0, Tor: 4)
  • Private Citizens (WP: 4, Tor: 4)

Some interviewees identified themselves as not perceiving threats due to privileged demographics or having socially approved interests.

RQ2. How do people who contribute to open collaboration projects manage risk?

  • Modifying participation
  • Enacting anonymity (technical eg Tor and operational eg multiple accounts approaches)

Tor users are often blocked by sites.

Implications

Problem of participation not always motivation or incentive. Threats above chill participation, counter to goals such as representing the sum of all knowledge.

Potential Interventions

Two dimensions: social/technical and internal/external

  • "projects could benefit by producing and publicizing guidelines for participants who wish to make anonymous contributions."
  • "offer people the option of creating a new technical identity that is publicly unlinked to their past technical identities when taking on significant new responsibilities and roles."
  • knowledge sharing among sites about how to enable anonymous contribution and control abuse; make sure users are aware of mechanisms, explore more sophisticated technical measures

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

Publicity post http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2016/October/Tor-Wikipedia-privacy/

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