The Dynamics of Digital Deception

1. Computer-Mediated Communication Deception in CMC September 2016

2. Lie vs. Deception Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

3. Think of (an innocent?) lie you told today or yesterday. Was it deceptive? What medium did it take place in? Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

4. Digital deception “The intentional control of information in a technologically mediated message to create a false belief in the receiver of the message.” • Deliberate • Designed to mislead or create a false belief • Information communicated through technological mediation Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

5. Types of digital deception • Identity-based • Stems from false manipulation of person or organization • Message-based • Takes place in communication between dyads or larger groups Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

6. Identity-based deception • Sherry Turkle (1995) pointed out that it’s easy to assume new identities online due to anonymity and multiple modes of social interaction. • We use signals (screen names, language) to establish our identities online. • It is relatively easy to manipulate these signals to falsely represent ourselves. • This is not necessarily a good or bad thing…context matters. • Recall Donath’s assessment and conventional signals: • Assessment signals are more expensive to maintain (harder to fake) Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

7. Regarding Identity: ambiguity vs. deception Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

8. Types of identity deception • Trolling: posing as a legitimate community member for purposes of disruption, fun, etc • Category deception: membership in a social group (male vs. female, black vs. white, Berkeley vs. Stanford student) • Identity concealment: deception by omission or hiding of identity information (shielding/ pseudonyms) Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

9. Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

10. The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover (Lindsy Van Gelder, circa 1985) • Male psychiatrist, Alex, created female online persona, Joan. • Formed intimate online friendships with women on CompuServe chat channels. • Initiated real-life romantic relationship with one of them (Alex “introduced”by Joan). Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

11. How is deception different online and offline, or between different mediated channels? Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

12. Lying in different communication media: Media Richness vs. Social Distance In which medium will we lie most? • FtF interaction • Phone • Instant Messaging • Email Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

13. Hancock’s research examining deceptive behavior • Participants recorded social interactions and lies for 7 days with the Social Interaction & Lie form (Diary Study) • Participants recorded: • Each social interaction (greater than 10 min) • Which medium (FtF, phone, IM, email, chat, etc.) • Whether or not they lied Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

14. Results — Hancock et al. % of interactions involving a lie 37% 27% 21% 14% Instant Message FtF Phone Email Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

15. Predictions based on features • The more recordable the medium (paper-trail), the less likely people are to lie. • The more synchronous and distributed (but not recordable), the more lying will occur: • Phone most • FtF • IM • Email • Others? least Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

16. Zhou et al. who found that "when being lied to targets used shorter sentences and asked more questions. These data suggest the fascinating possibility that targets had an implicit awareness or suspicion about the veracity of their partner, despite the fact that when asked whether they thought their partners were lying or not they performed at chance levels.” – Jon Gillick I find it surprising that Hancock ends this paper on this strangely hopeful note about automated deception detection…I imagine Clippit, the Microsoft Office Assistant, popping up... "It looks like you're typing a lie. Would you like help?” – James McCauley Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

17. The fact that people tend to lie more to each other in person than online, where their faces aren't seen, is surprising…The popularity with anonymity online would seem to encourage lying, but in fact it enables people to be more honest about their true thoughts, even if they aren't positive in nature. – Allison Yee Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

18. Deception and Choice of CMC vs FTF (Van Swol and Braun 2014) • Social Distance Hypothesis (DePaulo et al. 1996) • People should prefer more social distance when attempting to deceive others • “Truth Default Theory” used to argue that demeanor cues in f2f obscure ability to see deception in the message, so txt based deception will be more easily identified. Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

19. Channel Choice: Using the Ultimatum Game • Proposer decides how to split an amount of money and makes proposal to receiver. • Receiver can accept, or reject. • If reject, proposer gets 0, receiver gets a small payment. • In this particular version, proposer also picks the form of communication in advance (f2f using video, or text chat) Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

20. Channel Choice: Justification of Deception (Swol and Braun 2014) Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

21. Channel Choice: Justification of Deception (Swol and Braun 2014) • Receivers apparently better able to detect lies through text chat than f2f • Why? Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication

22. For Thursday: • Deception in Online Romantic Relationships • Deceptions about place and time: Butler Lies Cheshire & King — Computer-Mediated Communication