Ask HN: Should one remain anonymous in online content creation
I want to know what you think about the idea of creating and having an online presence and having that somehow trace back to you in the physical world (be it name, voice, face..ect)
I think most people should not do this. Society goes through cycles. Right now people are very divided and enraged by the social media rage machine. That rage machine has the potential to get exponentially more divisive with LLM's and it will be much easier to dox, trick, bait people with LLM's. Adding to this there are a plethora of unhealthy and unstable individuals that are always on the lookout for someone to direct their rage onto.
I can not think of any real benefit to everyone using a real identity. Well, not a benefit to the individual but rather a benefit to corporate capture, corporate tracking. This does not even begin to get into the issue of the collusion of corporations and governments working together to distract, divide, control narratives and so on. All of the big platforms have former cough cough government employees retained in highly influential positions that are totally not using Signal/WhatsApp to chat with active government officials.
As others mentioned ones views and opinions can change or evolve. Setting ones words on the internet in stone is a mistake. The masses are not forgiving and few put themselves in other peoples shoes. Corporations will do anything to cover their image. This forces people to wear a mask throughout their life, not voice their opinions. Some like this idea as it gives them the perception of having control over others, perhaps to compensate for the lack of control they have in their own lives.
Having your online identity and your real-world identity the same opens you up to too much risk, and it also means that you'll be less likely to to communicate honestly online.
Not a perfect chance, mind you… there’s certainly something to be said for anonymous whistleblowing, and also for a true vox populi (where you’re saying something that truly needs to be said and which people in power will kill to suppress). There’s also room for pushing entirely new ideas into the public domain specifically to disclaim intellectual property rights to those ideas.
But, overall, odds are pretty good you probably shouldn’t be saying it if all you’re trying to do is avoid being held responsible for saying what you said.