There's an almost constant debate on anonymity on the internet, the argument has existed for at least the last 30 or so years, and will likely continue for the lifetime of the internet.

In the "use your real name" corner - people argue that using an anonymous handle means that there is no credibility, the lack of consequence means that people can be /more/ disingenuous and provide bad faith comments.

In the "be anonymous" corner - people argue that what you say or do on the net now shouldn't affect you in 25 years time (there are multiple examples of politicians, or public figures who have said unwise things on the internet, only to have their careers ripped apart decades later)

For me (obviously) I have chosen the anonymous handle - because in the past I have had employers contacted because I hold different political views to some nasty people, I've had my house marked by them, my life was threatened, and some veiled threats about my children. (libertarians are very anti free speech when the speech is anti their house of cards)

Well, to be fair, some of the most vile hateful stuff I've ever seen in my life was posted on Facebook-powered comment sections under news articles, next to real names and pictures of smiling grandparents holding their grandchildren

Your experience is very different than mine.

> only to have their careers ripped apart decades later)

A stock car driver had his career ruined for things is father said long ago.

> libertarians are very anti free speech when the speech is anti their house of cards

It's sad that that occurred. A major part of libertarianism is free speech. But I'm sure you know that left-wing governments prefer to send any dissenters to the gulag.

> It's sad that that occurred. A major part of libertarianism is free speech. But I'm sure you know that left-wing governments prefer to send any dissenters to the gulag.

Whataboutism?

Honestly if all you really have is "but those other bad people are bad too" you have nothing at all.

Your post generalized libertarians as bad people.

I generalized left wing government as bad, sure, and I can cite many examples of it. The USSR, Pol Pot, etc.

It's a really tough situation. I want both at the exact same time. But since that's not possible, I lean towards anonymity. Stuff that's published on the internet is out there forever. Because of automated tools that exist now and that will only get better in the future, it will be easy to surface.

And it's hard because there's so many ways someone could make connections that aren't immediately obvious. For example, I used to have my home's IP address set as a subdomain of the same one I use for email (for VPNing in). But later I thought about it and realized that anyone could easily look at the DNS records for my domain and know more than I really want them to.

That's one of my favorite parts of reddit. Accounts are just pseudonyms, and you can generate as many as you want. I personally generate a new one every few months, which helps keep too much identifying data from building up over time.

and they're all identifiably attached to your metadata package(s)

Which, at the very least, isn't public to everyone. So, not perfect, but better than single public account.

Not sure I follow.

no. going to disagree. If you were alive in the 70s-90s you'd understand why. Anonymity = Animosity. I used to have your stance until MAGA tried to destroy the US. Meanwhile, countries that don't support anonymity, like the EU, are doing fine for the most part.

I'll refrain from trying to convince you that the "MAGA" demographic certainly were not destroying nor trying to destroy the US. You're clearly under-informed if you're assigning the country label to the EU. Is the EU a country?

I've been on the web since before GNU/Linux, I'm not unfamiliar with the olden days.

If you really were on the web since before gnu/Linux you would never have expressed it that way...

You'd say you were around when you dialed into BBSes.... Like those who actually were on the "web" before gnu/Linux.... Do you actually understand what you claimed with that?

Quick edit: just in case it's not clear enough

"First released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds"

"By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web"..."In 1991 the Commercial Internet eXchange was founded"

Unless you were friends with Tim it's literally impossible....