<story><title>Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer</title><url>https://theconversation.com/online-abuse-banning-anonymous-social-media-accounts-is-not-the-answer-170224</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lionkor</author><text>Anonymity is important because it allows you to have discussions purely based on the arguments and opinions, without the bias of &lt;i&gt;who&lt;/i&gt; youre talking to.&lt;p&gt;I often find myself having a wonderfully deep discussion with someone online, and when I eventually find out what they look like (etc), I often realize that they dont look as friendly, educated, etc as they are.&lt;p&gt;Humans are really bad at this, and you will put people into groups in your mind no matter how hard you try. Anonymity mostly removes this bias, and leads to &lt;i&gt;real&lt;/i&gt; and pure equal exchange of ideas.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oxfordmale</author><text>I can see the pros and cons of anonymity. However, personally I would delete a lot of my social media accounts if they forced me to disclose my identity. The case of Monika at Stackoverflow suggest you have to be really careful when using your full name, even on reputable sites. Data miners would also absolutely love it and governments are powerless to act on abuse as many of these companies are outside an enforceable jurisdiction.</text></comment>
<story><title>Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer</title><url>https://theconversation.com/online-abuse-banning-anonymous-social-media-accounts-is-not-the-answer-170224</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lionkor</author><text>Anonymity is important because it allows you to have discussions purely based on the arguments and opinions, without the bias of &lt;i&gt;who&lt;/i&gt; youre talking to.&lt;p&gt;I often find myself having a wonderfully deep discussion with someone online, and when I eventually find out what they look like (etc), I often realize that they dont look as friendly, educated, etc as they are.&lt;p&gt;Humans are really bad at this, and you will put people into groups in your mind no matter how hard you try. Anonymity mostly removes this bias, and leads to &lt;i&gt;real&lt;/i&gt; and pure equal exchange of ideas.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>majormajor</author><text>Anonymity &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; enable that but it also enables far nastier things.&lt;p&gt;There are pros and cons. Simply pointing out pros is not enough to win the day.</text></comment>