December 15, 2023
NPR recently published a podcast featuring Florian Ederer, Allen and Kelli Questrom Professor in Markets, Public Policy, and Law, discussing a flaw in the way the website Economics Job Market Rumors gives anonymity to users.
The website is half a job information Wiki, which posts what’s happening inside economics departments, and half a discussion forum, which allows users to ask questions about economics. Unfortunately, the forum has become notorious for racist and sexist posts.
In a study conducted in October 2023, Ederer and engineer Kyle Jensen found that toxic posts on the site are coming from everywhere in economics, particularly universities.
Online anonymity allows people to share things they might have been hesitant to share otherwise, often leading to toxicity, and Ederer emphasized that this is a topic we should not look away from.
