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You're right, of course, and maybe I should have said "nothing wrong with submitting an article to hn without putting an established identity or even your real-
by ben0x539 13y ago
You're right, of course, and maybe I should have said "nothing wrong with submitting an article to hn without putting an established identity or even your real-life personal safety on the line". I suppose it was my desire to express with that comment my wider frustration regarding stuff like facebook/google+ real name policies that made my opt for a less accurate statement.
- beat 13y agoIn general I agree, although there are certainly times when anonymity could be problematic even submitting an article on HN - for example, lying about an individual or a company, or starting a dangerous rumor. The benefit of anonymity is, generally, to protect the anonymous from retaliation for things said or done anonymously. This is important, priceless even, when evil is being done by the powerful. For example, whistleblowing. So the question is, is anonymity being used in any given case for good, neutral, or evil? In the case of Facebook/Google+, I think the policy is understandable, if annoying. There's no business benefit to them to provide anonymity, and substantial business risk if they do.
- ben0x539 13y agoThe comment I was responding to seemed like a blanket condemnation of anonymous submissions, so I felt like a blanket rejection of that statement was in order. With regards to protecting whistleblowing versus people starting dangerous rumors, I think we can safely err towards accepting anonymous submissions without scrutiny since the community is already fairly skeptical. I don't feel compelled to sympathize with Facebook/Google+'s business cases. I'm not criticizing their business acumen, after all.