Hacker News Reader

Comment by nodesocket | Hacker News Reader

I've been thinking about this recently, and there are few cases where anonymity on the internet is a positive. Let's take Hacker News as a case-study. The open registration system without email verification or any sort of verification allows users to comment and act without retribution or fear of being called out. While I support strong security and encryption, generally being anonymous on the internet promotes negative behavior.

Anonymity on the internet causes people to act inappropriately, troll, comment offensively, conduct fraud and illegal activities.

View on HN

Let's take Hacker News as a case-study. The open registration system without email verification or any sort of verification allows users to comment and act without retribution or fear of being called out. While I support strong security and encryption, generally being anonymous on the internet promotes negative behavior.

Anonymity on the internet causes people to act inappropriately, troll, comment offensively, conduct fraud and illegal activities.

Interesting, because I think your example is even more effective as a counter-example to your point. As you noted, Hacker News is pretty anonymous, and without verification. Yet, compare the comments here, with Facebook comments on pretty much any news site. Or maybe any other site with Facebook comments. There is no comparison -- Hacker News, with all its anonymity, is much more civil, collegiate, and productive.

The lack of intelligent, earnest discourse online is much more complex than anonymity or the lack of it.

I would say both cases has far less to do with the anonyminity or lack there of. HN is a heavily moderated board, with things like trolling, offensive comments, non civil discourse, etc, being stamped out fairly quickly by the moderators (who, by and large do a decent job, even if sometimes they get a little heavy handed). Whereas on most local news sites, that’s just not the case. Presumably they thought having a “real name” to the comments would temper people a bit, but by and large, we’ve seen that’s just not the case.

>Hacker News, with all its anonymity, is much more civil, collegiate, and productive.

Thanks to self-moderation. Any stupid, low-quality comment turns [dead] pretty fast.

And content attracts above average intelligence audience in general. That also helps.

I agree. But that shows the key isn't a lack of anonymity, but a larger collection of other factors.

The general (but not perfect) success of moderating HN comment moderation is a perfect example of vigilance being the price of freedom. A free society only works when Good People participate in social and political processes - even smaller situations like helping maintain a popular discussion forum.

> act inappropriately, troll, comment offensively

I'd argue this is the single most important thing the internet has given us. The possibility of honest discourse without fear of repercussion. It has single handedly changed the world.

The terms "act inappropriately", "comment offensively"… these are terms of control; tyranny of the majority.

Having to hear arguments you don't like or agree with is the single most important development humanity has ever achieved.

I hold nothing but scorn for the people who fight against minority voices.

I would argue the exact opposite: that the internet may have enabled the freedom of minorities to express their views without fear of repercussion or immediate ostracism, but that because of the nature of selection bias and the rise of echo chambers/safe spaces/whatever, the internet has made genuine discourse much, much harder. In the US, right now, the degree of polarization is so high that many people get all their news from sources with the same slant, only associate online with people who agree with them, hell, unfriend any high school Facebook friends who post things they find politically unpalatable. In what way is that "having to hear arguments you don't like or agree with"?

Anonymity does remove social ostracism, but I disagree that social coherence is a bad thing.

FWIW, on the 'un-friend' comment, I think that's really just a backlash from the unabated friending of people that you had forgotten why you fell out of touch with.

Then they post stupid shit and you're like, "oh that's right, he's always been an idiot". And unfriend/unfollow.

Political discussions were historically off-limits in many social settings and a quick way to end real life friendships. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but hanging out with like-minded people has always been a thing.

Humans are social animals. For such groups, creating a coherent shared identity, or culture, is essential. To achieve that, groups have developed all sorts of methods to put pressure on people straying too far from the current consensus–laws being only the ultima ratio in a democracy, with most issues settled much earlier, often even without anyone consciously noticing, through softer methods of signalling (your scorn being one example).

There's nothing wrong with that. If opinions have any power, some must be worse than others, and some may be actively harmful. Therefore, it is illogical to expect the "freedom" to publish opinions the majority considers immoral while expecting complete immunity from any reactions,

I don't think anonymity is the central thing that changed the world, or the primary value of the internet. Anonymous voices are easy to falsify, so it's impossible to distinguish whether the comment represents a belief held in good faith, commercial spam, a prank, etc., and this limits the influence of online anonymity.

My belief is that the internet actually allows people to further insulate and isolate from minority POVs. Even though someone can butt into many online conversations without an invitation, this technique is interpreted as disruption and will typically only harden someone against the other side's influence.

Worse, the interfering party's humanity and commonalities are invisible to the other side; the disruptor is embodied merely as a wall of text to be torn apart, an inanimate object, instead of an earnest, sympathetic fellow being operating in good faith to contribute his/her POV to the discussion.

In the real world, the necessity of ongoing interaction with the same set of people requires everyone to at least tolerate the diversity of POVs with a bit of respect and decorum. Over time, as people grow closer and new data becomes visible, that perspective may become less and less foreign, and the good aspects of its owner revealed through regular interaction will more commonly prevent wholesale dismissal of people with a contrary POV, because there will be direct personal experience with a Real Person who holds it.

On the internet, no matter how crazy or isolated your beliefs/ideas are, you can find a cloister that will (at least appear to) parrot them back. Many people will isolate further and further into this group and feed off of each other with no input from the other side, allowing their caricatures to become more and more egregious and detached, leading to ever-increasing hostility and ultimately full dehumanization of those holding opposing POVs.

Of course, that isolation effect is not exclusive to the internet (cf. any wartime propaganda about the enemy "other", with whom most citizens would've had very little exposure), but IMO the internet allows it to occur more aggressively than ever. Anyone can retreat into their echo chamber after they've grown sick of the basic cohesion necessary to function in meatspace.

>it's impossible to distinguish whether the comment represents a belief held in good faith, commercial spam, a prank, etc

This is wrong. First thing anonymity should teach you is critical thinking. At least it should. After that, issues you are talking about are not really issues anymore.

> The possibility of honest discourse without fear of repercussion. It has single handedly changed the world.

Of course there is evidence and particular pockets of great good, but internet trolling, bullying, acting inappropriately, fraud, and scamming people greatly outweighs the good. Can't movements as important and big as Egypt still occur without anonymity? After all, a lot of the people tweeted and used Facebook with their real names and information.

[warning: this may sound hostile, which isn't intended. I want this to be educational, but I fear my writing ability may not be sufficient.]

> Can't movements as important and big as Egypt still occur without anonymity?

How is that even a question. Of course governments target people they see a potential threat. History is full of examples of movements being suppressed to protect the established seats of power.

You don't even need to go all the way to Egypt; the FBI's former program known as COINTELPRO was specifically about targeting potential leaders who speak up before they can form a larger movement.

> trolling, bullying

Have you ever actually been targeted by a person or group engaging in active trolling, bullying, or harassment? I doubt you have, because reliable anonymity is one of the only defenses against the current weapon of choice used to harass people that dare to express their opinion online: "doxing"[1]. Without anonymity, a lot more people would be subject to death threats (including their address and other specific details), calls to their neighbors or employer with slanderous accusations, swatting[2] or worse.

However, the largest problem with insisting that communication must include real names is the chilling effect it has on groups like the usual racial minorities, LGBT people, or women. The entire concept of being "in the closet" is based on the fear that comes form knowing that speaking publicly in support of civil rights might risk sever harassment or even death.

I suggest watching Vi Hart's video[3] from last year. It's difficult to watch. I'm hoping it can give you a sense sense of scale about the problems that are the daily reality of many people. Thanks to anonymous communication over the internet some of these problems are finally being discussed. People in targeted minority groups finally have a way they can communicate without risking harassment or death. Do you really want to tell them that they need to take that risk or get back in the closet?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiW-BVPCbZk

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toap7iPpTbs

Yeah, this is a good post. But the balance is hard. I've had a friend (who was not anonymous, because she had a real job in a public-facing industry) crash on my couch while she looked for a place to live because the GamerGate (anonymous scumbags) decided to take pictures in front of her house while wearing masks. It's a natural impulse to tear off the pimply-faced masks and show who's throwing around death threats like they're hard men. But, on balance, it's almost certainly a bad idea.

Which isn't to say that one has to care about the faceless mob; I'm perfectly happy not interacting with pseudonymous or anonymous people outside of--well, basically HN, but the problem pseudonymity/anonymity solves in many quarters is real.

There is a difference between rational discourse and outright harassment.

For example, is the Anshe Chung penis swam incident [1] acceptable?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anshe_Chung#Target_of_griefing

Exactly. Anonymity doesn't promote negative behavior, it promotes honesty.

In this case, we're quite literally discussing how anonymity promotes negative--if honest--behavior. If we made murder legal and free of societal repercussion, you'd probably have a lot more people expressing their inner (and honest) murderous urges. I feel that we shouldn't spin the fact that people are base and uncivil unless corralled by authority as "hey, we're letting humans be honest."

>have a lot more people expressing their inner (and honest) murderous urges

Most people would not. Minority, like psychopaths, would try do it for a little bit, but they will be put down by mentally stable people very fast. After that normal humans will create new law by themselves and you are back to square one. Your example does not really work, because you have to expose your body in real life to do stuff.

And let's not compare murder with opinions on the internet in the first place. Honesty on the internet cannot do real harm, annoyance maximum. If you are afraid of harassment, don't associate your persona with your opinion, anonymity will protect you.

We sacrificed "real life" freedom to hypocrisy already. Let's try to do better here.

The other question is, why do you need more privacy than what our financial system currently provides? I've never once thought of using Bitcoin for privacy. I know my expenditures will not become known to anybody except my bank. I know I'm protected by the bank if my card gets stolen. I know that a criminal can be easily tracked if she uses a card or a bank account. I mean what's not to like? To be honest, I'm not able to think of any legal transaction that necessitates Bitcoin. Everything that can be done with Bitcoin can be done with normal currency, with better protections and still reasonable privacy.

Bitcoin is useful for normal transactions because it allows the users to avoid a lot of hassle. As transactions become more complex, the hassles accumulate.

To accept a card for a domestic transaction, merchants must go through a lengthy approval process and forfeit some portion of each sale to the payment processor (this has gotten substantially easier in recent years; before Stripe et al, you had to get a bank to underwrite your business before you could accept credit cards). Customers must possess a supported card, which also require approval and often come with other fees that the consumer must bear. For foreign transactions, you have to try to figure out whether your card will work in the first place, and if it will, many cards will charge foreign transaction fees, currency exchange fees, have additional verification and paperwork hoops, etc.

From this perspective, bitcoin is like cash; it is simple no matter what you're doing with it, and it doesn't require the permission of any bank. If you have bitcoin, you can distribute it as you see fit, without middlemen (ignoring miners since their controversies usually don't have a direct/immediate impact on users).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com