15 Reasons Online Anonymity is So ImportantDave Maass In this view of the Internet, everyone elses anonymity is worth sacrificing to silence the trolls. Its easy to understand why some in the press have this perspective. If you work in online media, the bulk of your interactions involve news stories, which seem to draw the ugliest forms of discourse. If youre a public figure, youre faced with haters on Twitter who are obsessed with enumerating all the ways you suck. Theyre even worse in the comments on YouTube. A website, such as Slate, certainly has the right to determine the culture of its online community, and I dont have a position whether such sites, across the spectrum, should or should not allow anonymous comments, or even allow comments at all. I do, however, dispute this narrow vision of the Internet. So, I spent the weekend brainstorming and jotting down all the kinds of people who would lose out if anonymity no longer existed in any form on the Internet. Anonymity is important to: Political Gabfest listeners. Each week, the hosts encourage listeners to post comments. Of the 262 largely positive customer reviews on iTunes, only a handful see value in using their real names. Anonymity is important to anyone who doesnt want every facet of their online life tied to a Google search of their name. It is important to anyone who is repulsed by the idea of an unrelenting data broker logging everything she has ever said, or shown interest in, in a permanent marketing profile. And more. Bazelon describes anonymous comments as generally a big mistake for free societies. I disagree and point to Common Sense by Thomas Paine, originally published under the anonymous byline, an Englishman. (Perhaps that could be Gabfests next Audible recommendation.) To suggest anonymity should be forbidden because of troll-noise is just as bad as suggesting a ban on protesting because the only demonstrators you have ever encountered are from the Westboro Baptist Churchthe trolls of the picket world. People who say otherwise need to widen their experience and understanding of the online world. The online spaces we know and love would be doomed without anonymity, even if the security of that anonymity is far from absolute or impenetrable. The ability to explore other identities, to communicate incognito, to seek out communities and advice without revealing your identity is not only a net positive, but crucial to preserving a free and open Internet. Support the Electronic Frontier Foundation to fight for digital freedom and privacy. 