This week, I was tasked with conducting a cybersleuth on a fellow classmate of mine, Liam. Essentially, I was to find anything and everything I could about Liam through their digital identity. To start off my cybersleuthing, I checked out Liam’s Twitter since we follow each other. Through Liam’s Twitter, I was able to identify interests of theirs, such as playing/watching sports and the outdoors; we are quite similar. I was also able to identify what they look like. All of this information will allow me to better identify information on the Liam that I am looking for online. After I checked Liam’s Twitter, I did a quick search of them online and obviously had few results for the actual person I was looking for. However, once I nailed down a location search, I found better results. I used Liam’s Twitter page as a starting point/hint to what they may have been involved in throughout their life. This strategy worked out well as I discovered that Liam has always had an interest in playing/watching sports and the outdoors. On Liam’s Facebook, there are several hunting and outdoor photos. I also discovered that Liam not only enjoys sports but is an advocate as well. In 2015, Liam was an umpire for the North Regina Little League and may have done it very several more years after that. The last thing I found while cybersleuthing was that both me and Liam have a love for Badminton. In 2018, Liam made it to Regionals in mixed doubles for Badminton.

Overall, if I were to be upfront and honest about my cybersleuthing experience, I would say I hated it; it felt creepy, wrong, and intrusive.

I began to think about how long I spent essentially just confirming what I knew about Liam, that they liked sports and the outdoors. I found nothing harmful at all when cybersleuthing Liam nor did I want to. But then, I began to wonder about the people who do want to find harmful stuff on others, and those who do wish to end a person’s life in the eyes of society. Who are the people that, as Jon Ronson puts it, “want to destroy people, but don’t want to feel bad about?” (2015). And why do they do it? In Jon Ronson’s TED talk that I just referenced, he also says, “when we watch crime dramas, we tend to identify with the defence attorney, but give us the power and we become like hanging judges.” I believe this is largely what social media has become. It is unlimited power at the fingertips for anyone to become the hanging judge and make the world their courtroom; guilty until proven innocent. But in a weird way, I believe there is a little of that in all of us. Jon Ronson explains that “it is a very human thing to do, to dehumanize the people we hurt.”

The creepiness of cybersleuthing and just not wanting to advertise my life to others is why I use multiple social media platforms for different audiences of people in my life. Which it turns out is completely normal, as Nicole Lee says, “having multiple social media accounts is pretty common.” But as I finish university and use social media less every day, I just want to get rid of them. I don’t know how many times recently I have debated just deleting all of my social media accounts. Besides my Twitter account, I use EDTC300, I only scroll through Instagram and have not posted in two years. It feels like a weird chore at times when I have to update my life online. As an example, before I typed this blog post, I read Liam’s blog where he cybersleuthed me, and found that my Facebook still says I live in Moose Jaw, which hasn’t been true in two years. Maybe I’m weird but I have really no motivation to change it either. As I said, I do enjoy scrolling through Instagram, but I no longer find any satisfaction in posting or sharing anything. For me, its just one less thing to stress about.