Melanie Diggs
21956066
September 28, 2013
This
past August, a mother daughter team from Colorado was found guilty for scamming
suspects out of thousands of dollars by acting as military personal on internet
dating sites. Using the anonymity of the
internet, the team eventually sparked relationships with their female victims. The victims, eager to see and hear from their
“significant other”, would send thousands of dollars in an attempt to
communicate with them. The money they
were able to scam off innocent people was split between the duo and accomplices
around the world. They have been
sentenced to 12 and 15 years in prison and 5 years of parole respectively.
I feel like the cause of the
disinhibition in this case is due to dissociative anonymity. As John Suler explains in his article, with
people being anonymous on the internet, they feel like their internet self is
not a real representation of who they are; they are under the impression that
their actions will not be connected to them in the real world. This can be used in this situation. Perhaps guarded by the anonymity of the
internet, this team was able to pose as a marine without a second thought
because they actually took on the role of the marine. When online, they were the soldier. They could have thought that their real life identity
wouldn’t be affected nor associated with their online presence. Unless someone could hack in to their
computer, someone online would not be able to see their association to the fake
names. Their own physical identities are
completely separate from their online presence.
But as in most cases, the duo was caught, again proving that online,
interactive practices have real life consequences.
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