Anonymity and Pseudonyms in Social Software

The thing she misses or doesn't emphasize as much is that self-created identities are just as valid as your birth name. The same goes for your avatar versus a mugshot. The phenomenon of universal full names is relatively recent across history and in many societies those people with names could change them at will.

Insisting on real names also creates a burden for young people who might want to leave certain things behind. There needs to be more balance to facilitate self-expression AND social interaction.

She talks about preserving group #2 (pseudonyms) while agressively moderating group #3 (trolls). This is the most important balance to keep, and moderation is obviously a necessity. But I think there might be a way to inherently limit trolling by using the proper site design for social interaction. At Freeversation.com, we've developed an invite-only anonymous discussion forum where everyone knows who was invited to the conversation, but not who's saying what. In other words, an online form of Chatham House Rules.

So far, we haven't seen much trolling because we've eliminated the limitless audience of traditional anonymous forums. Our focused discussion groups are limited to relevant individuals only. I just think there has to be a way to promote honest, open dialogue without having to moderate each and every comment.

"Eric Schmidt suggested that young people should be entitled to change their identity to escape their misspent youth, which is now recorded in excruciating detail on social networking sites such as Facebook."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-w...