3 responses to “The anonymity dilemma”
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a) I like a bit of anonymity online on occasion, for the same reason I like to travel. Being anonymous in a big city or big network lets you explore different aspects of yourself that might otherwise lay dormant or repressed.
b) It’s easy to forget that freedom of expression is sadly still the privilege of a vocal and wealthy minority in this world. Take the NY-‘skanks’-scenario and paste in a (more?) corrupt judiciary, prosecutors armed with semi-automatic rifles, the dented pride of an ambitious and powerful political figure…I needn’t name ‘regimes’.
c) Could you tweak your theme so that there’s a link to leave comments directly after each post?
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Also in favour of the possibility of anonymity – for similar reasons to Charles –
I like to have some downtime
I like to sometimes see things from the outside
I sometimes like to play with different identities (I think there’s an article on apophrenia about this being especially important for teen development)
I might sometimes do things online that my employers or professional contacts may disapprove of.
Freedom of speech is not universal, even in the West.
Support groups online would be less likely to work if people had to show their ID.
Satire, protest and subversion often depend on this. I think NY Skanks is a little bit of a red herring. Did the site do any damage to the model’s career or reputation? No. If the blogger had been making a good point, then maybe it would have done. But she wasn’t.At the same time, I can appreciate the need for a verifiable identity. I think that’s probably OpenID or a variant better packaged for the consumer market. Maybe use of that ID might be insisted upon by some services or publications, but probably not by all.
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[…] H/T to Anthony Mayfield for the reference to this video on his post, “The anonymity dilemma.” […]
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