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Comment by grondilu | Hacker News Reader

> Anonymous communication is an important part of democratic societies and freedom of speech.

Is it?

It's easy to take for granted in an advanced democratic state, because freedom of speech is protected in one way or another.

For a certain subset of societies that suppress information and views, anonymous communication becomes more important. Enabling more voices is in essence making the society more democratic (or leading towards).

In addition, if you look at what's going on in Poland[1] at the moment, then you could very well argue that a popular service that can't be censored would help present a more balanced view of what is going on.

From that perspective it becomes a safeguard to prevent slipping, even if things are sailing along fine at the moment.

[1]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/barack-obam...

Absolutely. Back when I first started doing FOIA requests, everything was anonymous. Not necessarily because of paranoia, but because it gave me a calm peace of mind after submitting requests.

After some bogus FOIA redactions and misinterpretations, I submitted a Request for Review (RFR) to the Illinois attorney general's office who refused to continue without a signature with a valid first and last name to associate the RFR to the original FOIA request.... even though my first and last name weren't actually on any previous requests (their argument made no sense, especially with ESIGN in mind). My lawyer even told me that it would be a waste of time to fight it and to just accept it - since a lawsuit would very likely require my name anyway. Or alternatively give up on the request.

Since my writing style stand out like a sore thumb, staying "anonymous" seemed pretty silly going forward, so I stopped. These days, I feel naked when submitting a request and in a lot of ways, it definitely feels like it does limit certain types of requests. If anything, my requests are a little bit more agitated - I definitely no longer have the same peace of mind as before.

Anonymous communication might help desinformation/propaganda trolls too, though.

Yes, it is. If it is possible to experience out-of-band retribution for unpopular speech traced to an identifiable individual, some minority opinions fall silent.

In the US, police accountability activists may find additional civil offense summonses on the windshields of their cars--even when parked in their own driveways. That is childish and petty harassment, and the forms of retribution can be much worse. Various regulatory agencies have been used to attack political opponents, such as IRS audit rates showing a marked difference between supporters and non-supporters. EPA may demand more land use restrictions on owners with less political strength.

It is very important to be able to tell other people about your grievances without fear of someone saying, "Oh yeah? If you thought that was bad, just wait 'til you see what you get for blabbing about it!"

Let's assume that someone had the capability to read your thoughts without your consent. An oppressive regime would thrive with this technology: Scan everyone's brain to detect undesirables to the state. Communications between members of a group are the organizations thoughts that they have not made public yet. Should a political regime have the ability to mind read that group? If no, you should support private communication.

Anonymous communications are the same thing. Pretty much all civil rights are born out of law breaking: A black and white person marrying, someone drinking beer (prohibition), people having homosexual sex. If all statements required an identity attached to them, no one would be able to anonymously campaign the merits of their ethical lawbreaking to advance social mores.

It's a little bit sad to me that, when we think of civil rights nowadays, the first examples that come to our minds are drinking beer and having sex. Thankfully, those that came before us had other priorities, ones which allowed us to get to the point where we can have these discussions today.

Yes[1].

If you're still not convinced, ask Publius[2].

[1] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/01/five-activists-pun...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers

Isn't it? You don't have secret ballot in your country's elections?

that's not freedom of speech.

Secret ballots are probably indispensible for democracy, but it is debatable (note I said "debatable") whether anonymity is necessary for freedom of speech and democracy. After all we've had many revolutions and regime changes in societies past where there was no anonymity of communication. Now arguably you could say that said regime changes might have occurred with less blood had anonymity been available, but then it is also arguable whether anonymous communication is anything like as forceful and persuasive as someone prepared to risk themselves by taking a public stance. IE we could argue that anonymous stances would not have created the regime change in the first place.

A whole bunch of avatars screaming a slogan is not persuasive.

I think when people talk about the importance of anonymity in communication, they aren't talking about the people talking to each other not knowing who the person they are talking to is. What they are talking about is the ability to talk to other people without a third-party (namely the government) knowing who you are talking to.

Pre-internet, this was accomplished in many ways. Secret meeting groups, anonymous newsletters, etc. With modern communication and data collection, it is much easier than ever before to know who is talking to who. If a government always knows who is talking to who, it becomes much easier to suppress detractors.

John Adams' Thoughts on Government (published in 1776) seems appropriate here as an example of anonymous communication, one that helped formulate the very notion of US democracy. It was written during a revolution, too.

> that's not freedom of speech.

I didn't say that, I was talking about the value of anonymous communication in a democracy. Surely voting is a form of communication.

"It could be used to destroy a democracy too" -anon

Edit: I'm too afraid of the downvotes to take responsibility for my speech.

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