4 ms·

30 years ago, when anonymity was the default on the internet because of the low standard of trust that was universally presumed, this worked remarkably well. I

30 years ago, when anonymity was the default on the internet because of the low standard of trust that was universally presumed, this worked remarkably well. I'm thinking about IRC's golden age now. There is a small number of special-interest communication media (in software development, for example) where this still works today, like hackernews or freenode. But for the vast majority of people and types of communication acts, anonymity is basically no longer an option: The presence of non-anonymous media like Facebook has displaced innocuous communication from media like IRC that do allow anonymity. People aren't going to go looking for kiddie porn on Facebook but IRC still enables that kind of information-seeking behaviour. People doing foodie-posts are not going to do that on IRC but go on Facebook instead. -- This means that IRC has become a really scary place to be if there's a possibility you might get deanonymized, and generally not a place where you will find like-minded individuals unless you are one screwed-up individual. On the flip-side of the coin, at Facebook etc, you are going to be the victim of surveillance capitalism. So: Compartmentalizing doesn't work. Unless anonymity is the default for everyone and used for both sensitive and non-sensitive communication, it doesn't actually provide a solution to the problems of surveillance capitalism. And the majority of people are always going to be too dumb not to be tricked into deanonymizing themselves most of the time.

mirimir 8y ago
> So: Compartmentalizing doesn't work. Unless anonymity is the default for everyone and used for both sensitive and non-sensitive communication, it doesn't actually provide a solution to the problems of surveillance capitalism. And the majority of people are always going to be too dumb not to be tricked into deanonymizing themselves most of the time. Well, it "provide[s] a solution to the problems of surveillance capitalism" for me. And for anyone else who cares. Everyone else will do what they want, and get what they get. Other than offering helpful suggestions from time to time, it's just not my problem. I used to think that it was, but I was a fool.
- pdimitar 8y ago
  The more people opt into anonymizing tech the more noise the adversary organizations have to sift through. If there are not many of us, we are making it easy for them. I see your point but IMO your parent commenter has a good point as well.
hakfoo 8y ago
What sort of surprised me is that when you had the first generation with widespread internet access, they didn't remain deeply in love with psuedonymity. We all had our psuedonyms-- AIM screen names, email addresses that weren't firstname.lastname@domain.com, forum usernames derived from fantasy-novel characters, and the like-- but seemed perfectly eager to trade it away for non-anonymous alternatives once MySpace/Facebook/etc. became the dominant paradigm. The concept of "I can have multiple, context-dependent identities" seems like it solves a lot of community problems naturally. You can choose whether or not to leverage an established name between different communities. You can seek a fresh start by spawning a new identity and returning to zero. The context-dependent identity can hide or exaggerate factors that might trigger bias (can you tell from a username alone if the person you're writing to is 13 or 30, or do you have to actually judge what they're saying?) I think the most effective use of it that still sticks around is the Reddit/HN throwaway accounts-- you want enough identity to get notified of responses without any further attachment to the rest of your life.

mirimir 8y ago

> So: Compartmentalizing doesn't work. Unless anonymity is the default for everyone and used for both sensitive and non-sensitive communication, it doesn't actually provide a solution to the problems of surveillance capitalism. And the majority of people are always going to be too dumb not to be tricked into deanonymizing themselves most of the time. Well, it "provide[s] a solution to the problems of surveillance capitalism" for me. And for anyone else who cares. Everyone else will do what they want, and get what they get. Other than offering helpful suggestions from time to time, it's just not my problem. I used to think that it was, but I was a fool.

pdimitar 8y ago
The more people opt into anonymizing tech the more noise the adversary organizations have to sift through. If there are not many of us, we are making it easy for them. I see your point but IMO your parent commenter has a good point as well.

hakfoo 8y ago

What sort of surprised me is that when you had the first generation with widespread internet access, they didn't remain deeply in love with psuedonymity. We all had our psuedonyms-- AIM screen names, email addresses that weren't firstname.lastname@domain.com, forum usernames derived from fantasy-novel characters, and the like-- but seemed perfectly eager to trade it away for non-anonymous alternatives once MySpace/Facebook/etc. became the dominant paradigm. The concept of "I can have multiple, context-dependent identities" seems like it solves a lot of community problems naturally. You can choose whether or not to leverage an established name between different communities. You can seek a fresh start by spawning a new identity and returning to zero. The context-dependent identity can hide or exaggerate factors that might trigger bias (can you tell from a username alone if the person you're writing to is 13 or 30, or do you have to actually judge what they're saying?) I think the most effective use of it that still sticks around is the Reddit/HN throwaway accounts-- you want enough identity to get notified of responses without any further attachment to the rest of your life.