Anonymity
blog.samaltman.com
blog.samaltman.com
I'll try to write a real response tonight on my blog (http://chrishateswriting.com)
I tend to agree with this statement. Anonymity and Pseudonymity (two diff things) type conversations will decay if the community allows it and the audience on the medium encourages the behavior. I've seen plenty of negative "real name" conversations. I've also seen plenty of great *nym conversations too.
SV misses the point on this in my opinion as well.
[edited] I just want to add the original content and tone also sets the stage for what happens in the comment sections.
In the case of Secret, I'm a little bleh on the app but think the UI is sweet. I haven't seen the negative side of it yet nor have I posted negative comments either.
Omegle used to be a lot of fun when it was mostly college students who were bored waiting for class or something and wanted to talk to someone interesting in a different place.
It's a good 'risk free' way to get to know someone.
I think a mobile app that did one to one anonymous communication restricted by .edu would be really successful (especially if it was just your school initially so you could potentially meet).
The general idea of self-censorship in non-anonymous systems is probably the main counter that I could think of to the original post. You get bad and good from it, but it's better to live in a world with both as a result than with neither.
Current Omegle is filled with too much spam - I would even take the .edu thing a step further and start at just one school (restrict by specific school) so you have the anonymity of the chat to talk to someone, but then they're also around if you hear about something going on that night or they want to meet etc. I think that would be neat.
I think it'd be a popular chat web/phone app on college campuses if people knew about it and a good addition to what I'd thought would make a good dating site at the time (http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/dating-websites/), but I think tinder does some of that now.
Anyway, that's awesome you got something up!
I'm defaulting it to "any college", at least for now. If the feature catches on, I might make the default change based on the user's college (i.e., create a list of colleges which have a significant userbase).
If you're going to make such a strong statement, it would make sense to at least put out a tl;dr; of your argument. Otherwise, your comment just functions as an advertisement for your blog post. (I'm sure that wasn't your intention).
I take his link less as a blog-advertisement, and more of a "I'm more likely to update that than edit my comment on HN". I'd love it if, after he writes his blog post, he were to summarize it in an edit to his HN comment.
But stating that Sam was "completely and utterly wrong" isn't constructive and doesn't advance any argument.
Reddit, on the other hand feels very much alive. People talk about their feelings, confide in each other, ask interesting questions. Not sure if it's just the anonymity, it also has to do with the fact that the community is much bigger so you can ask anything and someone will have an answer. However, the anonymity certainly allows for that large group to come together for (often) coherent conversations.
In other words, would it work if you used your real name but the set of people who receive your messages and the set of people who can associate your real name with your in-person identity are non-overlapping. You're essentially asking if strict anonymity is necessary or if pseudonyms would be sufficient.
If you say something on a forum where, say, you are linked to your Facebook profile, you're not pushing that comment to the eyeballs of everyone you know. My online social network is now essentially the same as my offline social network, and there's not too much that I'm okay pushing to the eyeballs of everyone I know. Not because I'm ashamed, but out of general courtesy.
This is the very reason I have no social media accounts that use my real name. And many people on my FB feed, have no idea what my Twitter handle is and vice versa.
It's a great feeling to have a completely unencumbered sounding board where you can spew whatever you want (within reason of course) and your friends, co-workers, current or future company employing you will never know.
Recruiters and companies always ask for my social media user names and I never tell them. It's nice to know with great certainty they won't ever find them unless I give them up willing.
But the effect on Facebook is generally to imagine this: all of your contacts are in a room, and every time you comment, you're getting up on stage and saying something. No catcalling from the audience. You're walking all the way to the raised floor and taking the mike and looking out into that sea of people like James who saw you naked in high school during that pool party and Gina who still believes that we should have committed more troops to Iraq and Joe who doesn't really care about anything other than free beer, though if you ever bring up the mutual coworker he dated, he'll rip you a new one.
It's this complete cacophony of context--context that matters, that's important to you--and it's not actually possible to manage it as is.
Do people post about Important Issues and Discuss Things Maturely and Deeply on Facebook? Of course they do. They do it everywhere. They do it face to face. They do it on the phone. They do it on national TV. They do it over email. They do it on Twitter. They probably do it on Snapchat, but I don't pay enough attention to notice.
What's the trick to getting that kind of conversation on Facebook? Same as any other place. Would you talk about your intimacy with James while Joe's around? Unlikely. But if you went and got a coffee. Or if you started a Facebook Group of some kind, or a private message, or whatever: anything to limit the contexts that invade into a conversation. (Alternately, there are actually super-public spaces on Facebook that get into reddit-style arguments.)
Anonymity, of course, does this automatically, because context is attached to some identity. But that doesn't mean anonymity is the actual mechanism. It's the hand holding the hammer, not the hammer itself.
At the end of the day, anonymity doesn't actually do anything.
Without anonymity, the larger the social-surface area, the greater the attack surface is. This is why as facebook grows, it becomes less useful. And why, when it was started, it was successful based on its "exclusiveness" (.edu), and not the other way around.
The "real reason" people wan't to eliminante online anonymity are two fold: (1) money; and (2) power.
Advertising and fascism both require manipulative social leverage, and having data-sets with non-anonymous correlations provides the tools to fight the old wars of the 20th century.
The forces at work are dark and powerful and likely to win. They run through Silicon Valley and its establishment just like they do the east coast. Becuase at this stage, the one is just spending the money of the other...deep symbiotic linkages mean the one cannot do without the other.
Thus, I think that the "solution" to these sorts of nasty gossip apps is what Mr. Altman has done: simply refusing to be party to the gossip. You may miss out on juicy deets of who's done what with whom, but some things are more important than two minutes of entertainment. It's really up to potential users to decide if they want to get sucked into this sort of negative attention funnel.
edit: I see moot is going to be writing a response to this; I look forward to what he has to say. He is, in my opinion, the foremost expert on internet anonymity (or at least he's on 4chan a lot) so I think that his perspective should be considered highly.
(Still, I'm interested to see what he'll say)
Interesting comment. The man who's the foremost expert on anonymity is a well know "celeb" on 4Chan. Sorry, your comment just struck me as ironic.
My point is: nasty things are not the only things you can only say in anonymity. It's also required for opinions that are not aligned with the mainstream. I come from Germany - we have learned here that the mainstream is not always right.
I keep considering to write about feminism in my blog, but I am actually worried about crazy people on the internet targeting me. I don't really hide - I've voiced my opinion with my real name as well. But I don't feel very confident about it.
Real names are perhaps fine for tech bloggers, but there are too many subjects where they really hamper honest discussion.
That said, HN is really not the best place for honest discussion about controversial topics; the community is incapable of dealing with them and the software strongly discourages them. As someone who enjoys discussing any viewpoint, even those I strongly oppose, I find it somewhat disturbing how easily people censor what they dislike.
As someone whose political beliefs align less than one hundred percent with the "standard SF liberal" position on HN, I feel this pain.
For example, I'm rather skeptical that gay rights are a Good Thing -- yet I'm also very afraid that I'll be permanently tarred and feathered as a bigot, and permanently lose opportunities, if I post that sentiment under an account that can be connected to my real identity.
Whenever I bring it up, one side of the debate starts quoting Scripture and the other side says that anyone who questions their views, or has the least bit of skepticism, is worse than Hitler. I honestly don't know how to initiate a rational discussion of the issue. And I especially suspect that the side that immediately dismisses any other line of thinking by calling names as loudly as possible does so to cover weaknesses in their argument.
It's not that I have it in for gays; rather, it's that no one's ever explained to me the argument for why the gay rights movement is a Good Thing, in a way that I find convincing. Based on my own analysis, it seems to be a weak position [1] -- perhaps not one which should be adopted, and certainly not an axiom which is beyond reproach or questioning of assumptions. And I'm a stubborn, independent thinker -- as a matter of principle, I refuse to believe something simply because it's popular among the crowd I hang out with -- or because one side has declared the opposition to be heretics. (Fun thought experiment: s/bigot/heretic/)
[1] Basically, I think our society should treat homosexuality / bisexuality as it treats adultery -- nobody goes to jail or gets their life destroyed as long as any sexual activity involves only consenting adults. But it's a lifestyle choice that people should disapprove of, not least because it's disruptive to the family structure consisting of children raised by two parents of opposite sex in a committed relationship, which -- all else being equal -- is the best environment for a child to grow up in. Also, I'm skeptical of the claim that homosexuality is not a choice -- if a person doesn't choose who they have sex with, why is rape a crime?
I'm certain many readers will object to the above, but I haven't been able to get someone to make a cogent argument that actually addresses my points; everyone just screams "DIE IN A FIRE" at the top of their lungs at me when I bring this up in a liberal place like HN.
Wow, I had no idea 4chan is so irrelevant. Someone should tell them.
In that sense, yes, 4chan is absolutely a perfect example.
I know you're the creator of 4chan, and are necessarily going to see it "at its best", but surely even you must agree that many parts of it (especially /b/) behave badly?
More anonymity = discussion tends towards thought provoking, creative, honest, offensive
How is 4chan culturally relevant? If it is, is it more or less relevant than reddit? How about twitter? What cultural artifacts has it produced that could not have been created elsewhere? Are these cultural artifacts timeless or ephemeral? Can it produce something beyond culture? Could a work of literature or science emerge from 4chan? What would we lose if it didn't exist? How does anonymity help? Does it help teenagers forge an identity? Adults? Or does it help foster a group bond between like minded folks? Does the anonymity and lack of an account history allow one to experiment with ideas without being beholden to a past identity? Is it similar to a videogame in that respect, where one can do and say what one wants without consequences? Can such a world coexist with a service like Facebook or Google Plus? Does this allow people who are or believe they are marginalized by society to thrive or is this a place where privileged bullies wear masks and sharpen their taunts? If it were possible, would Facebook or Google Plus benefit from a /b/ mode? What would it look like? How does all this relate to Secret? Would Secret be used as a therapy session? A way to attack enemies? A way to spread knowledge? Or pure entertainment?
I don't have much of an opinion on 4chan or Secret, but find anonymity and privacy fascinating. I think the point you and moot are raising is a great addition to what Sam wrote, and look forward to reading what moot is going to write. In the meant time, I would love that the discussion went beyond sarcasm and two word rebuttals.
As to Sam's argument, it's certainly important to consider the ramifications of anonymity on civility: as users of HN we know how quickly things can degenerate.
In an app like Secret, it could get even worse. Since the posts you see are from either contacts or contacts of contacts, it's not hard to deduce whether a scandalous rumor is realistic. Thus, revelations can be much more damaging and with the attendant network effects, function like high school bullying.
We shouldn't forget, however, that anonymity has great benefits as well: the ability to say things you really think without the fear of social & political persecution, similarly whistleblowing. Confessing your mistakes anonymously may take a load of your back and let you move on to better things.
Ideally, I want to live in a society where people say what they mean, and mean what they say. Where free speech is not merely theory but practice. I also want to live in a society where we treat each other with the respect that human beings deserve.
Part of the respect that human beings deserve is the respect for their right to speak freely without threat of persecution. As a practical matter, this means the right to speak under their own name as well as the right to speak anonymously.
The quality of the conversation has gotten worse and worse, things are targeted towards the lowest common denominator.
You need to go to specific subreddits or really dig around in the shit to find the gems.
The flip side is that it generates a ton of content. To the signal to noise is horrible, but in aggregate there is more interesting stuff going on then on slashdot or wherever
Social sites like Facebook are fine for social interaction, but they are missing a boat when they don't give individual contexts to different situations, all pertaining to a single person. I'd rather be anonymous in one context and not anonymous in another, but Facebook doesn't provide such feature. Sites like Reddit on the other hand are at the opposite spectrum. You are technically anonymous across the board.
The balance between the two is that of context. Give people the ability to set their own context and that would be the ultimately best social Internet.
Define decay. People voicing strong opinions or even being assholes to a certain degree doesn't count. It's a normal part of every community. Usenet was full of legendary flame wars, yet the level of discourse was still very high, and most people used real names to identify themselves.
Otherwise, all you get is a hugbox echo chamber where people with personality disorders and brittle egos thrive in a mutual self-affirmation, eradicating all discourse.
Second, I'm anonymous on HN and I'm anonymous on Reddit. This should prove that what you need is not to ban anonymity, but to have good enough voting and filtering mechanisms, and a decent culture inside the community.
I'm also not entirely sure Twitter is getting better. If it is, it's only because you chose to follow certain people. But I imagine with Twitter growing its audience, a lot more of the "normal people", who may not be as educated, join Twitter and say a lot of nasty stuff online, much like they would offline.
As for Facebook, again, it may have gotten "better" for you because of its filtering mechanism, and because in time it learned to show you only certain types of posts.
So from your point of view, I think the main problems are with the type of community this is in the first place, and the "etiquette" for that community, and with Secret.ly being a new app and the founders not having enough time to polish things up.
Facebook and other social networks don't usually have much accountability built in. You can be an ass on Facebook and not face any consequences. So Facebook actually only maintains "good behavior" by allowing closed communities (All my friends are well behaved, so all I see on Facebook is good behavior. If I behave badly my friends will react negatively, etc.). If you were able to look outside your own well-behaved bubble, you would see that real-name social networks aren't able to enforce good social norms. They just reinforce the social norms that are already dominant in your friend group.
An issue with the forced-identity aspect of social networks is you are only allowed one identity. You are discouraged from activities/communities/discussions that are sensitive or embarrassing or not accepted by your dominant peer group.
Not to say there is nothing good about these real-name social networks. They would have never reached such a broad cross-section of people with everyone registering via pseudo-anonymous handles. Using real names makes things more palatable and manageable for non-technically minded people.
He grabbed a few top of mind examples that supported his theory and tried to guess what was wrong with Secret, then extrapolated to anonymity in general. Had he slept on the text or sent to a few friends to review it, I could bet it would become different on the conclusions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7204558
It got very little discussion, so if you didn't see it, I recommend it.
There are times when anonymity can help people who are really in danger or who hope to call attention to broken systems. But you're never going to see that if you're focused on grousing about people being jerks. (I suspect that people do this as a way of elevating themselves above the muck, so to speak, but that is another topic entirely.)
If I could add a postscript to that essay, I'd say that it's 4chan's lax administrative policies, distaste for moderation and censorship, and the incredible size of the community that give it its unruly flavor, not the fact that the posters are anonymous. In the smaller, more carefully moderated anonymous communities I've been a part of, things are much closer to the ideals shii describes.
Only if the users aren't invested in their identity. It has also been shown that positive anonymous communities can be built.
The problem I have with Secret is that, in order to be marketable to marketers and VCs, Secret weakened the purpose of anonymity online. Straight honesty. Without the ability to be honest with yourself and others, anonymity online is only half good. The community rules they have are destructive to people who want to be honest with themselves.
When people feel like they are the only one that espouses an idea, they are less likely to share it publicly for fear of shame. When they are given anonymity, they can share freely and potentially find that their idea is actually commonly shared.
In 4chan, particularly on /b/, there are so many anonymous participants that it's very unlikely that one person would recognize another. Someone could write something personal about another person, and it seems unlikely that anyone would care, and certainly no-one would remember. There are few real-world consequences. (I found a fun paper on anonymity in 4chan by merely searching for "studies on anonymity" http://projects.csail.mit.edu/chanthropology/4chan.pdf)
But in Secret, part of the point is to exchange information about the real world. This seems to be much more likely to have ill effects, possibly like the ones gruesome referred to in the "Rumor Monger" software at Apple that he mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
Has anyone found anything interesting about small group anonymity? Is that a useful distinction?
Now imagine another version of Secret, where you truly anonymize message sends. Instead of seeing content from your friends lists, you see content from the world-over. Instead of some sort of petty, mean-girls-esque hate journal, it could be a modern, 21'st century version of the confessional (not that I'm a fan of the confessional, but you gotta admit there's something rather tantalizing in the concept).
SV seems to be stuck in a mire where product has to revolve around one's social group. What happened to the days of good old voyeurism?
— V
In my mind, it's the "embarrassed about" point that makes such an app interesting.
Facebook, twitter, etc, is all cleaned up - the things you aren't exactly proud of, the dark moments, etc, are removed.
Which leads to a whole lot feeling like everyone on Facebook is doing better than you. It's nice to see the darker side of people, sometimes.
How can such a troll article get so high?!