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Comment by kohanz | Hacker News Reader

I partly agree, but it's also a bit of a cop out, to be honest. Anyone who has been in such an anonymous chat environment (game or otherwise) and has dished out such abuse has undoubtedly received it too and know how it feels. They do it because it illicits a reaction on the other end and they too have felt that reaction and decided they would rather be on the other end of it.

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They eliminated anonymity in large chunks of South Korea’s social media. People didn’t behave better.

(With that said, there are certain behaviours e.g. support for fascism that seem to be associated with having large numbers of anon accounts.)

Source?

I also see some pretty terrible behavior in Facebook comments on news sites/blogs right next to people's names, employer and a photo of them with their kid.

Yea, this is pretty useless information unless you can provide a source for these claims. I find it very hard to believe that the complete elimination of anonymity on a social media platform resulted in exactly 0 improvement in measurable behavior.

I Googled both your anonymity and your fascism claims and couldn't find anything, but I'd love to learn more.

https://splinternews.com/black-twitter-has-a-flawless-clap-b...

The closest thing my google-fu got me.

Here's one. There's plenty.

https://www.theringer.com/2016/8/9/16046698/anonymous-twitte...

Or they are so desensitized that they assume others are too. It is outrageous that anyone faces abuse like this, and it should not be a norm, but at the same time it's one of those things that you quickly become rather immune to.

And I question whether anonymity is really the root of this behavior, or if it's just the bravado of crowds. The negativity and bile spouted on Facebook never fails to astound me, and people say things that would be exile-worthy in any normal conversation.

elicit

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