I just read an excellent article called The Dark Side of Digital Backchannels in Shared Physical Spaces. I have nothing to really add to the analysis, except to say that these are circles I wish I traveled in. I should move to Silicon Valley and become a freelance philosopher.

The article also references the Online Disinhibition Effect, which I had somehow forgotten to mention in my classes this semester, so I was grateful for the reminder.

The Wikipedia entry for online inhibition effect lists six components:

• You Don’t Know Me (Dissociative anonymity)
• You Can’t See Me (Invisibility)
• See You Later (Asynchronicity)
• It’s All in My Head (Solipsistic Introjection)
• It’s Just a Game (Dissociative Imagination)
• We’re Equals (Minimizing Authority)

However, when online tools are used in shared physical spaces, they transform them into what Adriana de Souza e Silva and others call hybrid spaces. In such spaces, the first four components are not as relevant or applicable, and so the hybrid inhibition effect may only involve the last two, and I think the one that best explains the Twittermobbing at conferences is the last one.

Perhaps I am too deep into my research to see outside my own little world, but it strikes me that one might plausibly interpret Turing’s test as an endorsement of disinhibition in the last two senses: that we ought to treat our interactions with some machines as a game among equals, contrary to our normal biases against machines. In other words, although the online disinhibition effect is often discussed as a negative consequence of shared digital spaces (Wikipedia links its article to antisocial personality disorder, for instance), it is important to remember that sometimes disinhibition can be a virtue, especially when the norms that inhibit us are themselves negative and stifling.