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Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. I have both pseudonymous handles on reddit and also I go by my own

Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. I have both pseudonymous handles on reddit and also I go by my own name. On Hacker News I only go by my own name. And I have found that it made me a much, MUCH better person when posting. So now I post on reddit about 95% of the time under my own name as well. When you have no skin in the game -- such as your reputation to uphold, no superego to hold yourself in check -- a person's id reveals itself. And it's not pretty.

cup-of-tea 9y ago
I disagree. Anonymity allows you to express unpopular views that you wouldn't be able to in real life. But the existence of downvoting basically defeats that, except in unpopular echo chambers, of course.
- alex_young 9y ago
  What if your unpopular view you wouldn't express in real life is something abusive towards others? i.e. trolling.
  - projektir 9y ago
    You get banned.
    - ninkendo 9y ago
      Then you just make a new account?
  - cup-of-tea 9y ago
    Who decides what is "trolling"? I think there should be moderators but that it's possible to see what moderators have done and impossible for them to actually delete posts. That way each person can decide if they are happy with the moderation being done.
- SeanLuke 9y ago
  I'm not saying anonymity doesn't have its place. But that I think it's a major factor in the particular problem being discussed here.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    Have you not seen facebook comments on a news article lately? People have no problem being awful under their real name.
projektir 9y ago
> Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. No, anonymity is not new to the internet and is actually one of the beneficial aspects, since it makes people more likely to say what they think, and less likely to be a target for others. Lots of anonymous BBS are moderated just fine. Meanwhile, Facebook can be very vitriolic. The fundamental problem is the assumption that moderation is not needed and free speech is everything. It seems to have gotten popularized by Reddit in particular. Nobody who has spent lots of time on BBS, IRC, and other typically moderated spaces would think anonymity is even relevant.
rjtavares 9y ago
We've seen with facebook that have real names doesn't improve the level of discourse that much. I think it's the protection (or at least the apparent protection): you can't be a jerk in person in a public place without exposing yourself to immediate negative repercussions. That's why online forums with harsher moderation are usually much better (one of the best examples being /r/askhistorians).
- SeanLuke 9y ago
  > We've seen with facebook that have real names doesn't improve the level of discourse that much. Yeah, okay. How about: real names + no private gardens.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    What does "private garden" mean here? People have no problem showing up on public Facebook groups, visible to all, and posting racist stuff in their real names.
    - hcknwscommenter 9y ago
      I think, and totally admit it is pure speculation, that the hate foments in the private garden until the person is brainwashed enough to believe their hate is a normal and acceptable viewpoint. It is at that point that it leaks out into the public groups, visible to all.
- posterboy 9y ago
  Indeed I 5hink it's the missing direct personal contact. It takes a lot of, say, training, to learn to use communication media, too. You just can't have a chat as if face to face, in writing. And most people aren't well educated at authoring, either. At the worst, some wouldn't even know how to lead a conversation anyhow. Online forums just expose that. And I think we as a society at large, are still figuring this out, since 50 to 100 years, so it's a mess.
StevenPaul 9y ago
Yes, but that needs to be balanced by the distorted form of reputation people get even when they are polite and thoughtful due to the lack of any emotional channel in text-based web forums. Add to that the fact that in real life, people have many sides to their personalities, which are inhibited or eccentuated in different contexts; but the impression the web gives of people lacks those contexts. Then, consider the good that anonymity has allowed for; think of all the things people have able to speak out about anonymously which would have gone unsaid.
- SeanLuke 9y ago
  > Then, consider the good that anonymity has allowed for; think of all the things people have able to speak out about anonymously which would have gone unsaid. Of course.
cowpig 9y ago
Maybe you "become a better person" when you post under your real name, but Facebook, which has a real name requirement, is a cesspool, and this community, where most people use pseudonyms, is relatively civil. You can have an identity and "skin in the game" without using your real name. You can also use your real name and not care/be aware of the consequences of things you say online.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  Agreed, but note that for a lot of people on Facebook, their primary audience are friends, family & acquaintances; people who will mostly tolerate your (contrarian) views, whether you display tact or otherwise. People are the center of conversations on FB. This contrasts with a place like HN which has no concept of friends and family -- the center of everything here is the comment box. That's a great trade-off as it allows us to focus attention on debating contrarian ideas, and less on the one who is airing it.
TangoTrotFox 9y ago
As a thought experiment - would slavery in the US have ended sooner or later if we had anonymous internet from the 18th century on? I'm not implying there is any clear answer, but I think it is a simple way of immediately seeing much of the nuance of this issue that you might miss at a cursory consideration. Self censorship due to social pressure certainly keeps some people (as has been mentioned Facebook shows clearly enough that lots of people simply don't care) from discussing things that they would not feel comfortable discussing under their real name. And those things that they might not feel comfortable discussing can be negative, but they can also be positive. In either case, I think it's probably a net positive for society when people can discuss things they actually feel instead of things that they think others think they should feel, even though those others might not even feel that way! Shouldn't society operate in a way that we think it should operate instead of the way that we collectively think everybody else thinks we think it should operate?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
return1 9y ago
HN has a different audience and moderation so i m not sure its just your name. When people are posting with real name, it changes the dynamic, the post becomes part of the social signaling, which can lead them to refrain from saying some truths, or to support things they don’t really believe but align well with their real life identity.
youdontknowtho 9y ago
That's a great point. In the end it's an identity problem. This is one place where I think that blockchain technology might actually help. (Jesus, now I'm one of them.) There has to be pseudonymous/anonymous channels for information, but the bile has been so intense lately that it makes me think that the majority of communications need to be positively identified.
tajen 9y ago
Would you have used your real name if you were gay in 1950? The internet is not where politics are decided, but at the very least that’s where a good part of the debate happens. Use real names and you’ll be able to blackmail people into approving things they disapprove. What about publishing everyone’s votes, while you’re at it? No, people need a safe space to experiment debating about good and bad ideas without risk. Real name policies are only about the ability to blackmail and coerce.
posterboy 9y ago
Pseudonyms are just a symptom, I guess. A name is another channel for communication. For real names, origin was usually intimitly tied to identity. John Doe or Lisa Muller is as much a pseudonym as JDog123 would be, without further references. Real Name policy much relates to overlap between internet and local interactionnand discoverability. If I don't need to be discovered by non locals (as defined by my off-line reach; which today is a false schism, but anyway), I can use my name for artful expression. There are cases where I don't want to be discovered, too. The latter, Obscurity (hiding), shouldn't be confused with the former, Security (literally without worry or need).

cup-of-tea 9y ago

I disagree. Anonymity allows you to express unpopular views that you wouldn't be able to in real life. But the existence of downvoting basically defeats that, except in unpopular echo chambers, of course.

alex_young 9y ago
What if your unpopular view you wouldn't express in real life is something abusive towards others? i.e. trolling.
- projektir 9y ago
  You get banned.
  - ninkendo 9y ago
    Then you just make a new account?
- cup-of-tea 9y ago
  Who decides what is "trolling"? I think there should be moderators but that it's possible to see what moderators have done and impossible for them to actually delete posts. That way each person can decide if they are happy with the moderation being done.
SeanLuke 9y ago
I'm not saying anonymity doesn't have its place. But that I think it's a major factor in the particular problem being discussed here.
- ameister14 9y ago
  Have you not seen facebook comments on a news article lately? People have no problem being awful under their real name.

projektir 9y ago

> Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. No, anonymity is not new to the internet and is actually one of the beneficial aspects, since it makes people more likely to say what they think, and less likely to be a target for others. Lots of anonymous BBS are moderated just fine. Meanwhile, Facebook can be very vitriolic. The fundamental problem is the assumption that moderation is not needed and free speech is everything. It seems to have gotten popularized by Reddit in particular. Nobody who has spent lots of time on BBS, IRC, and other typically moderated spaces would think anonymity is even relevant.

rjtavares 9y ago

We've seen with facebook that have real names doesn't improve the level of discourse that much. I think it's the protection (or at least the apparent protection): you can't be a jerk in person in a public place without exposing yourself to immediate negative repercussions. That's why online forums with harsher moderation are usually much better (one of the best examples being /r/askhistorians).

SeanLuke 9y ago
> We've seen with facebook that have real names doesn't improve the level of discourse that much. Yeah, okay. How about: real names + no private gardens.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  What does "private garden" mean here? People have no problem showing up on public Facebook groups, visible to all, and posting racist stuff in their real names.
  - hcknwscommenter 9y ago
    I think, and totally admit it is pure speculation, that the hate foments in the private garden until the person is brainwashed enough to believe their hate is a normal and acceptable viewpoint. It is at that point that it leaks out into the public groups, visible to all.
posterboy 9y ago
Indeed I 5hink it's the missing direct personal contact. It takes a lot of, say, training, to learn to use communication media, too. You just can't have a chat as if face to face, in writing. And most people aren't well educated at authoring, either. At the worst, some wouldn't even know how to lead a conversation anyhow. Online forums just expose that. And I think we as a society at large, are still figuring this out, since 50 to 100 years, so it's a mess.

StevenPaul 9y ago

Yes, but that needs to be balanced by the distorted form of reputation people get even when they are polite and thoughtful due to the lack of any emotional channel in text-based web forums. Add to that the fact that in real life, people have many sides to their personalities, which are inhibited or eccentuated in different contexts; but the impression the web gives of people lacks those contexts. Then, consider the good that anonymity has allowed for; think of all the things people have able to speak out about anonymously which would have gone unsaid.

SeanLuke 9y ago
> Then, consider the good that anonymity has allowed for; think of all the things people have able to speak out about anonymously which would have gone unsaid. Of course.

cowpig 9y ago

Maybe you "become a better person" when you post under your real name, but Facebook, which has a real name requirement, is a cesspool, and this community, where most people use pseudonyms, is relatively civil. You can have an identity and "skin in the game" without using your real name. You can also use your real name and not care/be aware of the consequences of things you say online.

sah2ed 9y ago
Agreed, but note that for a lot of people on Facebook, their primary audience are friends, family & acquaintances; people who will mostly tolerate your (contrarian) views, whether you display tact or otherwise. People are the center of conversations on FB. This contrasts with a place like HN which has no concept of friends and family -- the center of everything here is the comment box. That's a great trade-off as it allows us to focus attention on debating contrarian ideas, and less on the one who is airing it.

TangoTrotFox 9y ago

As a thought experiment - would slavery in the US have ended sooner or later if we had anonymous internet from the 18th century on? I'm not implying there is any clear answer, but I think it is a simple way of immediately seeing much of the nuance of this issue that you might miss at a cursory consideration. Self censorship due to social pressure certainly keeps some people (as has been mentioned Facebook shows clearly enough that lots of people simply don't care) from discussing things that they would not feel comfortable discussing under their real name. And those things that they might not feel comfortable discussing can be negative, but they can also be positive. In either case, I think it's probably a net positive for society when people can discuss things they actually feel instead of things that they think others think they should feel, even though those others might not even feel that way! Shouldn't society operate in a way that we think it should operate instead of the way that we collectively think everybody else thinks we think it should operate?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

return1 9y ago

HN has a different audience and moderation so i m not sure its just your name. When people are posting with real name, it changes the dynamic, the post becomes part of the social signaling, which can lead them to refrain from saying some truths, or to support things they don’t really believe but align well with their real life identity.

youdontknowtho 9y ago

That's a great point. In the end it's an identity problem. This is one place where I think that blockchain technology might actually help. (Jesus, now I'm one of them.) There has to be pseudonymous/anonymous channels for information, but the bile has been so intense lately that it makes me think that the majority of communications need to be positively identified.

tajen 9y ago

Would you have used your real name if you were gay in 1950? The internet is not where politics are decided, but at the very least that’s where a good part of the debate happens. Use real names and you’ll be able to blackmail people into approving things they disapprove. What about publishing everyone’s votes, while you’re at it? No, people need a safe space to experiment debating about good and bad ideas without risk. Real name policies are only about the ability to blackmail and coerce.

posterboy 9y ago

Pseudonyms are just a symptom, I guess. A name is another channel for communication. For real names, origin was usually intimitly tied to identity. John Doe or Lisa Muller is as much a pseudonym as JDog123 would be, without further references. Real Name policy much relates to overlap between internet and local interactionnand discoverability. If I don't need to be discovered by non locals (as defined by my off-line reach; which today is a false schism, but anyway), I can use my name for artful expression. There are cases where I don't want to be discovered, too. The latter, Obscurity (hiding), shouldn't be confused with the former, Security (literally without worry or need).