# Reading Responses (Set 4)

### *Reading the Comments & Facebook*
To some, anonymity provides the guise of protection. They thrive under the circumstances where they believe there are no repercussions on the internet. However, the internet is very difficult to *actually* be anonymous from -- from ip addresses and countless data always tracking back to a specific user.

Whenever I think about anonymity on the internet, I am always reminded of this image.
As many of my communication classes talk about the internet in some context eventually, almost every single time we look at this picture. Even though we do not *really* know who someone is at first glance, somehow in some way something can always get connected back to the person who originally posted something.

One specific example from the [reading](https://readingthecomments.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/euf2ckop/release/2) was about Luka Magnotta. I first learned of him through watching the [Netflix documentary](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11318602/) about him. Luka used the supposed protection of anonymity on the internet to act without morals. He would comment on multiple accounts to bolster conversation about himself and his horrible acts of violence. As the reading wrote, he was arrested in an internet cafe reading and writing about himself on the internet. Not only were the police after him, but so were animal rights activists after they caught wind of the violence he committed to cats (and later to a human). No matter how safe he thought he was behind the computer, he really was far from it.

There truthfully is so much hate and violence on the internet -- across all platforms, as shown by Magnotta for example. Once again, people feel protected from behind the screen. As [Bond](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1053924352/facebook-instagram-bullying-harassment-numbers) wrote, Meta now publishes a quarterly report on what content was taken down from their platforms. This is in an effort to make these spaces safer, but with so many people having bad intentions -- is it ever possible for it to really be safe?