ANALYSIS OF AN ONLINE CRIME

In your assigned reading, John Suler’s “Online Disinhibition Effect” [LINK], Suler addresses several reasons why people become “disinhibited” on the Internet: Dissociative Anonymity, Dissociative Imagination, Invisibility, Asynchronicity, Minimization of Status, and Solipsistic Introjection.

Your assignment is to:

• Find, in a news publication, an online crime (something which is illegal which was done using the Internet) which has occurred in the last 9 months. This online crime can have offline consequences.

• On your team website: post your assignment, describing this crime in your own words (perhaps a paragraph or less).

• Include a link to the news item.

• Of the different causes Suler identifies as generating “disinhibition” (listed above), identify the most likely reason/cause for disinhibition which would motivate the criminal. In other words, please find an online crime that was likely motivated by disinhibition (by the criminal), and what you identify as the particular cause of this disinhibition (Asynchronicity? Dissociative Imagination? etc.). Please explain your answer in detail. Please consider that the victim may also have become a victim because they too were disinhibited. If that is the case, please provide an explanation for the victim also. If you cannot identify a crime as being the result of disinhibition (either by the criminal or victim), then search for another online crime example which does.