This is a very complicated topic that seems to see a lot of conflation, as it does in this article. It's really hard for a social network to maintain a balance, especially with how many try flooding them with very hard to verify, false information from misleading sources.

On our network, our plan moving forward is to allow our users to verify their identity privately with the platform to earn an "ID Verified" badge while still maintaining an anonymous public pseudonym if they choose. The idea being that others can trust the user is a real person and not some troll (paid or otherwise) while also allowing those that wish to have it to maintain anonymity publicly.

Just to give some insight into how this anonymity becomes a problem. On our platform, I watch in real-time people / actors from outside the U.S. posing as seemingly real people in the United States and posting propaganda. Not the obviously false stuff either. Carefully crafted political BS that is meant to simply move the needle ever so slightly on the desired targets -- arguably a case where anonymity is negatively affecting democracy. There is so much to this I could probably write an entire blog on it, it's ever irritating as someone running a platform but also quite interesting.