8 ms·

Anonymity can enable that but it also enables far nastier things. There are pros and cons. Simply pointing out pros is not enough to win the day.

AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
It should be enough to win the day. There is nothing other than anonymity than can provide the pro put forth by the OP. On the other hand, the "cons," you are making non-specific reference towards are achievable by any number of strategies and are a common facet of everyday life.
JasonFruit 5y ago
When the conversation starts with, "Let's ban anonymous accounts!", then enumerating points in favor of anonymous accounts is the right response.
- ethanbond 5y ago
  The conversation didn’t start with that. The conversation started with widespread abuse online originating from anonymous accounts. Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity. One reason being it’s extremely expensive to do that if not effectively impossible.
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    Then don't use those platforms? If you need a community that is going to be prone to abuse problems then make your own platform. Politicians and government offices should know better than to be using a commercial social media as their primary platform especially when it's not even based in your own country.
    - ethanbond 5y ago
      FWIW I agree governments should not ban anonymity, but that’s a position I’d hold regardless of whether it impacts abuse at all.
  - baloki 5y ago
    Wasn’t there evidence that anonymity doesn’t actually play as big a part as people keep saying? Most of the Twitter abuse, you can generally identify who it is behind the account, it’s more the forum than the anonymity?
    - handrous 5y ago
      It's the Internet. One of the things baked into the Internet is the abuse. It's been there from very early on, and it's never been substantially curbed. Some would probably rank it as a defining characteristic of the Internet. Many communities have grown on the Internet, in which part of what defines the in-group is when and how you're abusive, not whether (of course you are). This isn't a one-off, but a part of what communities grow around over and over again. Facebook and Twitter see tons of it, even when anonymity isn't a factor. The medium is the message. One of the messages of the Internet, as a medium, is abuse. Now, whether the take-away is "we should try to regulate it to stop that", or "people should stop using it to post details and thoughts, alongside PII and all tied to one traceable identity, that they wouldn't ever post to the public-use notice board at the local grocery store, because it's fucking insane (as Zuck might put it, they're 'dumb fucks') to post like that on the Internet and expect it to go well", or something else, is a matter for consideration.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    The conversation here, I believe, refers to the posting of this link, and the replies to it.
    - cortesoft 5y ago
      Then wouldn't you say THIS conversation started saying we shouldn't ban anonymous accounts?
      - drdeca 5y ago
        I misread the title
  - Telemakhos 5y ago
    > Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity. This implies that many communities with anonymity don't face abuse problems, so anonymity is not the root of the problem. Maybe the problem lies in the subject matter that the community handles and the sort of people that attracts.
    - ethanbond 5y ago
      No it really doesn’t imply that, and I don’t think many people would argue anonymity is “the” root of the problem. It just appears to be a contributing or exacerbating factor. Of course if you attract only polite people you don’t have abuse problems regardless of anonymity.
    - evgen 5y ago
      Anonymity makes abuse easier. It diminishes the cost to the abuser and places almost all of the cost on the victim. I would also recommend that you not be so quick to push the blame back on 'the community', because when you do so you tend to end up with the gatekeepers for those communities being forced to shoulder the cost and then we end up with twitter bans, Facebook moderation, and a lot of pearl clutching by the online free speech brigade. Most of the general pubic puts up with anonymity, but they certainly do not demand it and if it becomes too costly or too toxic they seem happy to chuck it overboard.
      - Telemakhos 5y ago
        I don't blame the community but the subject. People on car repair fora are perfectly civil to each other; people discussing politics become barbarians toward each other. Take two people from the car repair forum and have them hash out politics, and watch them turn into savages. It's the subject matter.
        evgen 5y ago
        The stake are higher in political discussion, but you do not have to search long to find uncivil behavior in just about any online interaction. People in a car repair forum might be kind to each other, but put those same two into a sports discussion, or even a discussion of Ford v Chevy and things can get quite salty quite quickly.
- slg 5y ago
  This is troubling logic if we expand it to other areas. For example, what if someone says "Let's ban killing other people"? Is it enough to point out that sometimes killing people saves the lives of other people? Should we outlaw killing in self defense? Should we outlaw killing people who are an imminent threat like active shooters? If you agree that sometimes killing can be justified, does that mean we need to allow all murder? Obviously not. These issues have nuance. There are always pros and cons. So I will repeat majormajor's point, the mere existence of a pro is not enough of an argument.
  - Cycl0ps 5y ago
    I agree with that. My concern, and what I assume is the concern of others, is that those putting these regulations in place would have neither the knowledge or intentions to consider that nuance. Considering that nuance myself, I don't think I could properly implement such laws.
    - slg 5y ago
      "It is hard to make a good law" is a bad reason to stop people from even trying.
      - JasonFruit 5y ago
        That's true. On the other hand, "The pros and cons of such a law are so mixed as to make a good one impossible," is a good reason not to make such a law. I think many of us see any law that could be described as "banning anonymous accounts" as being written with too broad a nib to be useful.
      - Cycl0ps 5y ago
        "No rule is better than bad rule" may be closer to my argument, though it dips further into anarchy than I'd like. People are welcome to try as they like, but governments aren't people. If Facebook wanted to try some system like Parler had I wouldn't protest against it, but the UK government mandating it would have far more reach and requires more consideration as a result.
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
> Simply pointing out pros is not enough to win the day. It's enough to convince vulnerable people who are calling out the misdeeds of the powerful. It might not be enough to sway the powerful who compulsively deploy (Gov/Corp/LEO) revenge on people who call them out.
- slg 5y ago
  >It's enough to convince vulnerable people who are calling out the misdeeds of the powerful. Vulnerable people like the trans community that is often the victim in this type of anonymous social media abuse? Are they allowed to call out the powerful and disproportionately white straight cis men who control social media companies and allow this abuse to continue? I just find it funny that you are using an argument that is identical to the one used by some of the people you are arguing against.
  - White_Wolf 5y ago
    You know... I'm starting to think you are correct to be entirely honest. If anonimity is banned we can actually see who is part of those twitter cancel mobs and actually fine and imprison those harassing other people and send death threats. 50% /s I'm 100% against it tbh. There are people that would be dead without it(just in case anyone missed the sarcasm)
    - slg 5y ago
      >I'm 100% against it tbh. There are people that would be dead without it(just in case anyone missed the sarcasm) There are also people who are dead because of the abuse they took on social media. Once again, the same argument from both sides.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vangelis 5y ago
my favorite part about non-anonymous accounts is being able to find their employer if they say something that's annoying.
- kbelder 5y ago
  I'm upvoting you because I think you make a good argument, using sarcasm, for anonymity. If you were indeed serious, please let me know, and I'll remove the upvote. Thanks.
  - vangelis 5y ago
    that's right (about the sarcasm)
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Maybe we should highlight sarcasm with a special color? Of course there should be the option to hide/unhide the color.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >my favorite part about non-anonymous accounts is being able to find their employer if they say something that's annoying. An excellent (sarcasm registered and understood, BTW) point. I am a practitioner of BDSM[0], which is, in some circles, quite controversial. Despite the fact that my activities are always consensual and never cause harm to anyone, if my employer, clients or others with whom I have unrelated interactions with had negative ideas about such things, I could suffer serious repercussions. I generally don't discuss such things online (or offline, if those I'm around aren't trusted), but if I did (as I am now), forcing me to link those discussions with my "legal" identity, could inflict real damage on my life -- even though nothing that I do is illegal or harmful. As such, Vangelis is 100% correct. My private activities, unrelated to my work, are none of my employer's (or anyone else's) business, nor is it a danger/threat to anyone. If I didn't have the veil of pseudonymity here, I would never even hint at it. And that's the problem with de-anonymization. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/BDSM https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/BDSM
hellojesus 5y ago
What's wrong with just allowing users to mute/ignore others? Instead of banning anonymity (which is a ridiculous thing to do), platforms can provide better tools to allow users to curate content or join discussion rooms. If you want some type of troll blocker to prevent spam accounts, you can use an anonymous crypto in junction with sign-up for a small fee that is inconsequential to a single user but painful at scale for users that generate many accounts.

AndrewUnmuted 5y ago

It should be enough to win the day. There is nothing other than anonymity than can provide the pro put forth by the OP. On the other hand, the "cons," you are making non-specific reference towards are achievable by any number of strategies and are a common facet of everyday life.

JasonFruit 5y ago

When the conversation starts with, "Let's ban anonymous accounts!", then enumerating points in favor of anonymous accounts is the right response.

ethanbond 5y ago
The conversation didn’t start with that. The conversation started with widespread abuse online originating from anonymous accounts. Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity. One reason being it’s extremely expensive to do that if not effectively impossible.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  Then don't use those platforms? If you need a community that is going to be prone to abuse problems then make your own platform. Politicians and government offices should know better than to be using a commercial social media as their primary platform especially when it's not even based in your own country.
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    FWIW I agree governments should not ban anonymity, but that’s a position I’d hold regardless of whether it impacts abuse at all.
- baloki 5y ago
  Wasn’t there evidence that anonymity doesn’t actually play as big a part as people keep saying? Most of the Twitter abuse, you can generally identify who it is behind the account, it’s more the forum than the anonymity?
  - handrous 5y ago
    It's the Internet. One of the things baked into the Internet is the abuse. It's been there from very early on, and it's never been substantially curbed. Some would probably rank it as a defining characteristic of the Internet. Many communities have grown on the Internet, in which part of what defines the in-group is when and how you're abusive, not whether (of course you are). This isn't a one-off, but a part of what communities grow around over and over again. Facebook and Twitter see tons of it, even when anonymity isn't a factor. The medium is the message. One of the messages of the Internet, as a medium, is abuse. Now, whether the take-away is "we should try to regulate it to stop that", or "people should stop using it to post details and thoughts, alongside PII and all tied to one traceable identity, that they wouldn't ever post to the public-use notice board at the local grocery store, because it's fucking insane (as Zuck might put it, they're 'dumb fucks') to post like that on the Internet and expect it to go well", or something else, is a matter for consideration.
- drdeca 5y ago
  The conversation here, I believe, refers to the posting of this link, and the replies to it.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Then wouldn't you say THIS conversation started saying we shouldn't ban anonymous accounts?
    - drdeca 5y ago
      I misread the title
- Telemakhos 5y ago
  > Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity. This implies that many communities with anonymity don't face abuse problems, so anonymity is not the root of the problem. Maybe the problem lies in the subject matter that the community handles and the sort of people that attracts.
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    No it really doesn’t imply that, and I don’t think many people would argue anonymity is “the” root of the problem. It just appears to be a contributing or exacerbating factor. Of course if you attract only polite people you don’t have abuse problems regardless of anonymity.
  - evgen 5y ago
    Anonymity makes abuse easier. It diminishes the cost to the abuser and places almost all of the cost on the victim. I would also recommend that you not be so quick to push the blame back on 'the community', because when you do so you tend to end up with the gatekeepers for those communities being forced to shoulder the cost and then we end up with twitter bans, Facebook moderation, and a lot of pearl clutching by the online free speech brigade. Most of the general pubic puts up with anonymity, but they certainly do not demand it and if it becomes too costly or too toxic they seem happy to chuck it overboard.
    - Telemakhos 5y ago
      I don't blame the community but the subject. People on car repair fora are perfectly civil to each other; people discussing politics become barbarians toward each other. Take two people from the car repair forum and have them hash out politics, and watch them turn into savages. It's the subject matter.
      - evgen 5y ago
        The stake are higher in political discussion, but you do not have to search long to find uncivil behavior in just about any online interaction. People in a car repair forum might be kind to each other, but put those same two into a sports discussion, or even a discussion of Ford v Chevy and things can get quite salty quite quickly.
slg 5y ago
This is troubling logic if we expand it to other areas. For example, what if someone says "Let's ban killing other people"? Is it enough to point out that sometimes killing people saves the lives of other people? Should we outlaw killing in self defense? Should we outlaw killing people who are an imminent threat like active shooters? If you agree that sometimes killing can be justified, does that mean we need to allow all murder? Obviously not. These issues have nuance. There are always pros and cons. So I will repeat majormajor's point, the mere existence of a pro is not enough of an argument.
- Cycl0ps 5y ago
  I agree with that. My concern, and what I assume is the concern of others, is that those putting these regulations in place would have neither the knowledge or intentions to consider that nuance. Considering that nuance myself, I don't think I could properly implement such laws.
  - slg 5y ago
    "It is hard to make a good law" is a bad reason to stop people from even trying.
    - JasonFruit 5y ago
      That's true. On the other hand, "The pros and cons of such a law are so mixed as to make a good one impossible," is a good reason not to make such a law. I think many of us see any law that could be described as "banning anonymous accounts" as being written with too broad a nib to be useful.
    - Cycl0ps 5y ago
      "No rule is better than bad rule" may be closer to my argument, though it dips further into anarchy than I'd like. People are welcome to try as they like, but governments aren't people. If Facebook wanted to try some system like Parler had I wouldn't protest against it, but the UK government mandating it would have far more reach and requires more consideration as a result.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

> Simply pointing out pros is not enough to win the day. It's enough to convince vulnerable people who are calling out the misdeeds of the powerful. It might not be enough to sway the powerful who compulsively deploy (Gov/Corp/LEO) revenge on people who call them out.

slg 5y ago
>It's enough to convince vulnerable people who are calling out the misdeeds of the powerful. Vulnerable people like the trans community that is often the victim in this type of anonymous social media abuse? Are they allowed to call out the powerful and disproportionately white straight cis men who control social media companies and allow this abuse to continue? I just find it funny that you are using an argument that is identical to the one used by some of the people you are arguing against.
- White_Wolf 5y ago
  You know... I'm starting to think you are correct to be entirely honest. If anonimity is banned we can actually see who is part of those twitter cancel mobs and actually fine and imprison those harassing other people and send death threats. 50% /s I'm 100% against it tbh. There are people that would be dead without it(just in case anyone missed the sarcasm)
  - slg 5y ago
    >I'm 100% against it tbh. There are people that would be dead without it(just in case anyone missed the sarcasm) There are also people who are dead because of the abuse they took on social media. Once again, the same argument from both sides.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vangelis 5y ago

my favorite part about non-anonymous accounts is being able to find their employer if they say something that's annoying.

kbelder 5y ago
I'm upvoting you because I think you make a good argument, using sarcasm, for anonymity. If you were indeed serious, please let me know, and I'll remove the upvote. Thanks.
- vangelis 5y ago
  that's right (about the sarcasm)
- imtringued 5y ago
  Maybe we should highlight sarcasm with a special color? Of course there should be the option to hide/unhide the color.
nobody9999 5y ago
>my favorite part about non-anonymous accounts is being able to find their employer if they say something that's annoying. An excellent (sarcasm registered and understood, BTW) point. I am a practitioner of BDSM[0], which is, in some circles, quite controversial. Despite the fact that my activities are always consensual and never cause harm to anyone, if my employer, clients or others with whom I have unrelated interactions with had negative ideas about such things, I could suffer serious repercussions. I generally don't discuss such things online (or offline, if those I'm around aren't trusted), but if I did (as I am now), forcing me to link those discussions with my "legal" identity, could inflict real damage on my life -- even though nothing that I do is illegal or harmful. As such, Vangelis is 100% correct. My private activities, unrelated to my work, are none of my employer's (or anyone else's) business, nor is it a danger/threat to anyone. If I didn't have the veil of pseudonymity here, I would never even hint at it. And that's the problem with de-anonymization. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/BDSM https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/BDSM

hellojesus 5y ago

What's wrong with just allowing users to mute/ignore others? Instead of banning anonymity (which is a ridiculous thing to do), platforms can provide better tools to allow users to curate content or join discussion rooms. If you want some type of troll blocker to prevent spam accounts, you can use an anonymous crypto in junction with sign-up for a small fee that is inconsequential to a single user but painful at scale for users that generate many accounts.