Wasn’t there evidence that anonymity doesn’t actually play as big a part as people keep saying? Most of the Twitter abuse, you can generally identify who it is behind the account, it’s more the forum than the anonymity?

It's the Internet. One of the things baked into the Internet is the abuse. It's been there from very early on, and it's never been substantially curbed. Some would probably rank it as a defining characteristic of the Internet. Many communities have grown on the Internet, in which part of what defines the in-group is when and how you're abusive, not whether (of course you are). This isn't a one-off, but a part of what communities grow around over and over again. Facebook and Twitter see tons of it, even when anonymity isn't a factor.

The medium is the message. One of the messages of the Internet, as a medium, is abuse.

Now, whether the take-away is "we should try to regulate it to stop that", or "people should stop using it to post details and thoughts, alongside PII and all tied to one traceable identity, that they wouldn't ever post to the public-use notice board at the local grocery store, because it's fucking insane (as Zuck might put it, they're 'dumb fucks') to post like that on the Internet and expect it to go well", or something else, is a matter for consideration.

Then don't use those platforms? If you need a community that is going to be prone to abuse problems then make your own platform. Politicians and government offices should know better than to be using a commercial social media as their primary platform especially when it's not even based in your own country.

FWIW I agree governments should not ban anonymity, but that’s a position I’d hold regardless of whether it impacts abuse at all.

> Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity.

This implies that many communities with anonymity don't face abuse problems, so anonymity is not the root of the problem. Maybe the problem lies in the subject matter that the community handles and the sort of people that attracts.

No it really doesn’t imply that, and I don’t think many people would argue anonymity is “the” root of the problem. It just appears to be a contributing or exacerbating factor.

Of course if you attract only polite people you don’t have abuse problems regardless of anonymity.

Anonymity makes abuse easier. It diminishes the cost to the abuser and places almost all of the cost on the victim. I would also recommend that you not be so quick to push the blame back on 'the community', because when you do so you tend to end up with the gatekeepers for those communities being forced to shoulder the cost and then we end up with twitter bans, Facebook moderation, and a lot of pearl clutching by the online free speech brigade. Most of the general pubic puts up with anonymity, but they certainly do not demand it and if it becomes too costly or too toxic they seem happy to chuck it overboard.

I don't blame the community but the subject. People on car repair fora are perfectly civil to each other; people discussing politics become barbarians toward each other. Take two people from the car repair forum and have them hash out politics, and watch them turn into savages. It's the subject matter.

The stake are higher in political discussion, but you do not have to search long to find uncivil behavior in just about any online interaction. People in a car repair forum might be kind to each other, but put those same two into a sports discussion, or even a discussion of Ford v Chevy and things can get quite salty quite quickly.

The conversation here, I believe, refers to the posting of this link, and the replies to it.

Then wouldn't you say THIS conversation started saying we shouldn't ban anonymous accounts?

I misread the title