What can you tell about someone based on how they type?

[Some_porcupine]

*opens conversation with unsolicited opinions on OPSEC, homesteading, & hebrews*

GEE, I WONDER WHO THIS USER COULD BE???

either DC or Ashman
like, this dont narrow it much either, this fits for at least 4 memebers

 

[灰の男性]

either DC or Ashman
like, this dont narrow it much either, this fits for at least 4 memebers

I am not obsessed with the Jews.

 

[silkdealer]

idk about other sites but on 4chan specifically the correlation between someone having really good grammar and sentence structure and their opinion being dogshit is near 1

 

[shaggytherodgers]

How much can you determine about a stranger on the internet based on their typing style alone? Forget the actual semantic content of a post, I'm just talking about style here - grammar, punctuation, structure, word choice, formatting, etc. - the semi-conscious choices people make when choosing how to compose something they post online. It's an accepted fact that different people have different writing styles, but how much can you tell about that person just by looking at how they type? How much does that affect your mental image of them? How often do you find yourself doing this, if at all?

For instance, can you guess a stranger's age online if they don't mention it? Their gender? Can you tell if English is not their first language even if they don't make any spelling errors or grammatical mistakes? Can you tell when someone is being emotionally sincere, or when they're trying to disguise how they really feel? (i.e. someone who is actually seething mad but trying to look calm.) Can you reconstruct the sound of their voice? Can you recognize someone you've seen before posting on an anonymous site or from behind an alt account just by looking at how they type? Can you tell what other websites they frequent? (i.e. "r*ddit spacing") What's the limit to this kind of theorizing, and at what point does it turn into a paranoid delusion?

I'm interested in hearing what other people think about this. I've spent a lot of my time on the internet posting on anonymous and pseudo-anonymous sites where IDing people based on how they type is an accepted thing, but I'm not sure how widespread or reasonable the idea actually is. Speaking for myself, I think there are a number of things you can accurately determine about someone based on their typing style but I want to hear what the rest of you have to say first.

If you type your own social, people can find a ton about you

 

[Some_porcupine]

there is one xxiivv forum about it (these identifiers; it talks about cybersecurity and possible stalking around the way one posts, and some style duplicates, copies of posts (by OP) on web, tracking, security; and linux anymizer...) but forgot name...

iirc it was almot verbatim of this!

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/c3mas9/the_ultimate_guide_to_internet_privacy_and/
or https://whos-zycher.github.io/opsec-guide/

*but was both online (tor vpn, cache...) and offline (stylometry, clothes, masks, walk, talk...)
(then,
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/opsec/comments/173dnqa/how_can_you_truly_obscure_your_writing_style_to/
)

---

akin to https://wiki.xxiivv.com/docs/reclaim_your_computer.html but not sure

 

[flipBurger]

If they want to be taken seriously, native speakers tend to avoid swearing when they type in online discussions like these unless it's for a joke or an exaggerated emotion. Patterns in 1:1 texting don't mean anything since they are usually a lot more emotion driven. Also the more they start their sentences with "I", the higher the chance of them being non-native.

 

[MAKSI]

Younger Gen Alpha people will try to act part of groups, and use broken english and other silly, completely unrelated r*ddit tier shit that everyone would cringe over, there are outliers but it is extremely easy to spot them on the internet now based on writing style, they try to conform to culture but often fail miserably.

People(most often native speakers) will also generally use things in english that don't exist, such as "aswell" for "as well", the combination of these along with general common sentence structure and vocabulary they use could considerably be used to find who's writing it is.

 

[RisingThumb]

Depending on if they use the em dash, you can tell if they are a bot.
Depending on if they spam triplets and quintuplets sequences in listing things, they're probably a bot.

There's probably more now that the Dead Internet Theory's gears are grinding...

 

[Digital Cheese]

I've experimented with changing my typing style to avoid this issue (can't remember if I've posted here or not, but if I have, I'll do it again).

Normally, under Digital Cheese, you'll see:
- Infinite commas
- Tons of slang words, particularly imageboard stuff (and as of more recently, soyjak.party slang)
- Extremely long and drawn out, or, extremely short sentences
- Likely a plethora of other things I just don't notice (maybe my infinite parentheses?)

So, when using another alias, I prefer to type more robotic, something that reads as though it is some mindless goyslop company social-media branding, rather than an actual human. Basically, I am unfiltered under here, and I play a character on other aliases. I believe someone else on Agora has noted this, but you either are true to yourself online *or* entirely unfiltered. Even when considering similar interests, I have enough interests that I can just pick and choose on a per-account basis without it looking suspicious. However, if I started saying I was a self-taught image, video, and audio editor who posts edgy things and has a weird obsession with old computer ports like PS/2, Halo 2, and Phantasy Star Online, it'd be far more obvious who I am, because I doubt many people fit that exact definition, especially if I give my age to be around the same.

Play a character if you want to avoid your typing style from being noticed. You can also type like a massive ESL if you're an English-speaker, but not all forums will let you type barely legible English and still remain unbanned unless your posts are otherwise literally perfect.