"I Don't Believe You": Identity, Evidence and the Right to Doubt.
There is a deceptively simple principle at the heart of many arguments on YouTube: people are entitled to decide what they believe. If somebody tells me who they are, I am perfectly entitled to believe them. I am equally entitled not to believe them. The mere fact that somebody becomes upset because another person does not accept their claimed identity does not, by itself, transform that claim into established fact. That distinction becomes particularly important in the strange world of online identities, where people can operate behind usernames, avatars, pseudonyms and anonymous accounts while simultaneously insisting that everybody else accept their claimed identity as unquestionable truth. The argument can become circular: “I am this person because I say I am this person.” But that isn't really evidence. It is simply an assertion. The Superman Test. Imagine somebody appearing on YouTube and announcing: “My name is Superman. I was born Superman. Everybody calls me Superman. Ther...
