Monday, April 12, 2010

Reconsidering anonymous online comments

NYTimes

From the start, Internet users have taken for granted that the territory was both a free-for-all and a digital disguise, allowing them to revel in their power to address the world while keeping their identities concealed.

A New Yorker cartoon from 1993, during the Web’s infancy, with one mutt saying to another, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” became an emblem of that freedom. For years, it was the magazine’s most reproduced cartoon.

When news sites, after years of hanging back, embraced the idea of allowing readers to post comments, the near-universal assumption was that anyone could weigh in and remain anonymous. But now, that idea is under attack from several directions, and journalists, more than ever, are questioning whether anonymity should be a given on news sites.[...]


3 comments :

  1. Yes, anonymity can be used as a shield for those who wish to be viscious without fear of reprisal but it can also be protective for those who wish to speak up but are fearful for the consequences it may have for them and and their families.
    And refusing anonymous comments does not stop a person from simply using a consistent false identity!

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  2. And refusing anonymous comments does not stop a person from simply using a consistent false identity!

    True. But a policy requiring true identities can open a whole can of worms. Powerful bad guys could possibly sue the blogs claiming that they should be able to know the true identities of bloggers as claimed by the site, possibly forcing those who felt safe to crawl back under rocks.

    Google has the right idea. Much power of the internet is derived from anonymity. Even eBay recently changed their bidding system to allow bidders to remain anonymous. And of course their anonymous rating system has been found so effective that it is now used by Amazon and many other companies.

    On this site, we usually know who the trolls are. Requiring real names on sites that fight injustice wouldn't make any sense anyway.

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  3. but it does encourage tocho kboro imho
    KT
    Joel Rich

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