Anonymity

Being a computer nerd I spend an inordinate amount of time on my Xbox 360 or, to a lesser extent, my PS3. As we all know these consoles have internet capabilities where one plays against gamers from all around the world. As such I converse with, sometimes hundreds of people in the space of an hour, as one might expect, online-gaming is the perfect forum to trash talk and bitch at other people anonymously. What one might find particularly distressing is the number of people who are openly racist to others they encounter online. To be clear, when I say racist in the context of online gaming I’m using it in the broadest possible sense, including xenophobia and prejudice against others’ religions.

Now, as an Englishman I come under a constant barrage of insults and jibes about my “bad teeth” and such, most of which is as water off a duck’s back to me, as I understand that those who are doing the persecuting, are on the whole, arrogant and ignorant fools. However this is not the extent of it. More often that not, I find it is the case that white Xbox live subscribers are extremely intolerant of other races. The sheer number of times I have heard in adenoidal American tones “shut up you fucking nigger” is appalling. I don’t claim to understand the political climate or views of others across the pond, but I’m assuming the percentage of people who are openly racist to members of the black community cannot be as high as it is over the internet.

I have a number of friends who subscribe to Xbox live as well as i do, and it shocked me that even one of them acts as i have described above. In my opinion, such behaviour is unnaceptable, the flippant use of a racial slur is perhaps permissable in a stressful situation, but the concentrated verbal assault on a person by 3 or 4 others based n their race and their race alone is simply cruel, i have bared witness to such attacks many times, and as a bystander i find them hard to stomache. I will often try to step in, because at worst their focus shifts to me, being called a limey, which i find laughable, but when its one of my own friends who is calling those he encounters online "niggers" and asking americans if they "remember the world trade centre" is completely out of order.

If it were up to me, we'd name and shame people, and after one incident of concentrated racial attacks on a fellow human being people would be outed on xbox live and removed from Microsoft, who would use their records to stop the same IP registering again. I'm not a bleeding heart liberal, and im not rightwing, and i do think that if a person holds racist views that is entirely their perogative, and nothing can change that. But when a person expresses these views in a manner that is only intended to, and can only serve to disparage people it is in my view unnaceptable.

I know i've gone off on a tangent about racism, but it's only to highlight my point about the danger of anonymity. When people are given an anonymous profile and free roam of the internet their views, which should be kept internal are externalised. For those of you who do use either Xbox live or Sony's online internet service my tag is "raggamuffin8t8" on both platforms, add me if you like. Take it easy ladies