Ask HN: Whatever happened to Internet anonymity? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Whatever happened to Internet anonymity?

2 pointschaosprophet2 comments

Hi all,

When I was first introduced to the internet some eleven years back, one of the most talked about things about the internet was how people could stop being their real self and could assume completely anonymous identities on the internet.

Newspapers (in India atleast) where abuzz with how anonymity was good and bad and dangerous, and how it was this very same anonymity that was propelling the growth of the internet. The internet was a hot commodity and it was mainly selling due to the unparalleled anonymity it offered (i.e. in forums and chat rooms).

Fast forward to 2008-09, and it seems everything on the internet is about your true identity. OpenID, Google, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Wordpress everyone wants the real you.

Whatever happened to the anonymity of the internet??? Why did people opt for their real identities as against remaining anonymous and doing just about anything they wanted without any fears of community backlashes???

I think people realised that trust was intrinsically linked to identity (im a big fan of this idea btw).

The idea that you can be anonymous online and say what you like is tied really closely to trolling and rudeness now. I think people have realised that you dont have to be anonymous to be "different" :)

For example I tend to be much more outspoken and forceful online than in real life. And it's not too hard to link places I am like that to a true identity. I like to think that the ability to do so instills a bit more "trustability" in what I have to say.

It's possible to be anonymous online, of course it is, but identity is a warmer and more trustworthy concept than anonymity - and we are all human after all :)

The internet's mostly been about psuedonymity; the *chans have been the main bastions of full anonymity. There's still a place for establishing a psuedonym disconnected from your offline identity to various degrees, but with a history and a reputation of its own.

(viz. me; I have a comment history and a karma score, and it wouldn't be too hard to get a sense of my identity here and on reddit; but I believe it'd be a non-trivial exercise to determine my offline identity even with a lot of googling and tools like Maltego).

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