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Comment by msvana | Hacker News Reader

I don't think using your real name helps that much. Most people on Facebook use their real name and still many have no issues with insulting other people or even supporting violence against individuals or groups of people.

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I think it's more distance and lack of consequences that causes toxic behaviour. People will be nicer to their friends, relatives and coworkers online than strangers, since hurting or alienating said people will have actual effects on their day to day life.

Meanwhile the average person on Reddit/Twitter/YouTube/whatever is someone you're very unlikely to ever deal with beyond a few passing comments online. So sadly, many people don't care much about being particularly civil towards them, since they're basically a non entity in the asshole's life. Regardless of whether that person has a real name or photo attached to their account.

Yeah, I'm interested in the psychology of that. Perhaps it's a little like "Stanford Prison Experiment". But I also suspect there's something fundamentally different. I don't know. I'm no expert on this.

It's not a panacea by any means - but the level of abuse that get on Facebook doesn't seem quite the same as on sites like Reddit or Twitter. Part of that may be down to the structure of the site, but you don't seem to get the huge mobs of people hurling death threats and abuse at someone on Facebook.

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