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Comment by 3xblah | Hacker News Reader

"Add in anonymity, and it's just disgusting," Torvalds said. "When you don't even put your real name on your garbage (or the garbage you share or like), it really doesn't help."

Except when you see people you knew and respected before social media existed posting and "liking" the same garbage. They either just do not care or they do not know any better.

The lack of anonymity lends itself to the emergence of countless self-promoters who specialise in posting yet more garbage, on a regular basis. The aim of which is often directly or indirectly commercial.

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Anonymity made for a healthier internet in my opinion. Nobody cared if xXNinja_420Xx said he was going to kill you or that all left-handed people deserve to be in concentration camps. Everyone still runs their fool mouth same as they used to except now you know it's your cousin Drew or Samantha from accounting saying it. Putting a name and a face on internet bullshit was a horrible development.

Given today's culture anonymity is even more important than it ever was. Someone across the world can boycott your place of work and get you sacked for voicing unfashionable opinions. Who will provide for your family then? Don't expect to lean on your partner either, they'll probably push to get her/him sacked too for associating with you.

True. Look at the blowback from Beto's writing from his childhood and how he had to apologise for it[0], some twenty or thirty years later.

[0] - https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/03/16/beto-orourke-poems-ch...

All left-handed people deserve to be in concentration camps.

I don't care

Damn you, xXNinja_420Xx.

> Everyone still runs their fool mouth same as they used to

I very much doubt this is true. Yes, people run their mouth on FB and other real-name / real-identity accounts, but not to the same extent as with anonymous profiles. What you see on real name accounts should be assumed to be the tip of the iceberg.

Without anonymity, one risks real-world harassment, stalking, and political, social, or economic consequences for saying things one's society, government, or maybe even employer doesn't like.

Journalists have been murdered for reporting the actions of gangs and corrupt governments. Had they been anonymous, perhaps they'd still be alive.

LGBT people risk being attacked when their identities are revealed online. Many other groups throughout history have been targeted because of their identity -- a prime example being Jews during the Holocaust, when census data was used to find them an round them up.

People will also be hesitant about speaking about wrongs committed by police, corrupt governments, or their employer when they believe their identity is known, for fear of reprisal.

As the ACLU points out: "The right to remain anonymous is a fundamental component of our right to free speech, and it applies every bit as much in the digital world as it does in the physical one."

https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/internet-speech/onli...

It is interesting stance given: https://medium.com/@pjbgf/spoofing-git-commits-7bef357d72f0

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