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I think having online anonymity and a reasonable ability to create pseudonyms to keep your communities separate is important and often overlooked. I think it’s

I think having online anonymity and a reasonable ability to create pseudonyms to keep your communities separate is important and often overlooked. I think it’s not OK for one community to be the moral authority over aspects of ones life, most especially a community in which you are volunteering and contributing in good standing.

croon 9y ago
As with a lot of things, I believe in a balance. I agree that anonymity in a lot of areas are crucial; oppressive regimes, whistle-blowing, private/sexual preferences, whatever have you. But as we've seen in the last year, complete anonymity and untraceability everywhere can have bad consequences; astro-turfing, smurfing, attention-ddos:ing, FUD, anti-net neutrality-comment identity theft. In some of these cases a central e-ID (which a lot of nations have) could have mitigated those issues, in others, not so. Ideas should live on their own merit, in which case the identity of the source is irrelevant, but (pardon my French) idiots make the case that logic and merit of ideas don't take center stage. In those cases I believe it's kind of relevant to know if you're buying into group think that is 80% bots, 5% trolls, 5% adversarial agents, etc. Anonymity is one solution to the problem of being able to keep dissenting opinions, but a solution with severe side effects. Transparency with a strong protection of freedom of ideas is another route. I guess to put it succinctly: I don't need to know the names or faces of the people I carry conversations with, only that they're real, unique people. It shouldn't matter, but recent history shows otherwise.
- rubyfan 9y ago
  Great perspective. Without question there are definitely risks that anonymity introduces. But there is an effective tyranny of free expression when parties are forced to use their names. The protections of liberty afforded on paper don’t always play out in real life. In theory we have protections of free association, freedom of religion, free speech and we’re all entitled to equal protection under the law - this doesn’t always play out. Too often mob rule has resulted in oppression of dissenting views and oppression of classes of people. Privacy, private communication, anonymous communication and pseudonymous communications are all essential for healthy society and discourse and cannot be written off because some would use them for nefarious purposes.

croon 9y ago

As with a lot of things, I believe in a balance. I agree that anonymity in a lot of areas are crucial; oppressive regimes, whistle-blowing, private/sexual preferences, whatever have you. But as we've seen in the last year, complete anonymity and untraceability everywhere can have bad consequences; astro-turfing, smurfing, attention-ddos:ing, FUD, anti-net neutrality-comment identity theft. In some of these cases a central e-ID (which a lot of nations have) could have mitigated those issues, in others, not so. Ideas should live on their own merit, in which case the identity of the source is irrelevant, but (pardon my French) idiots make the case that logic and merit of ideas don't take center stage. In those cases I believe it's kind of relevant to know if you're buying into group think that is 80% bots, 5% trolls, 5% adversarial agents, etc. Anonymity is one solution to the problem of being able to keep dissenting opinions, but a solution with severe side effects. Transparency with a strong protection of freedom of ideas is another route. I guess to put it succinctly: I don't need to know the names or faces of the people I carry conversations with, only that they're real, unique people. It shouldn't matter, but recent history shows otherwise.

rubyfan 9y ago
Great perspective. Without question there are definitely risks that anonymity introduces. But there is an effective tyranny of free expression when parties are forced to use their names. The protections of liberty afforded on paper don’t always play out in real life. In theory we have protections of free association, freedom of religion, free speech and we’re all entitled to equal protection under the law - this doesn’t always play out. Too often mob rule has resulted in oppression of dissenting views and oppression of classes of people. Privacy, private communication, anonymous communication and pseudonymous communications are all essential for healthy society and discourse and cannot be written off because some would use them for nefarious purposes.