People are much less likely to be cruel when people they appreciate could be made aware of it.
This has actually been studied academically (the "online disinhibition effect"). Anonymity definitely seems to correlate with poor behavior, even if it's not a causal relationship.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-...
I could know someone is named John Smith for example, and that still wouldn't help me pierce his anonymity unless there were other distinguishing features (picture, phone number, etc.).
So majority people are actually nice even when anonymous. And penny arcade is a comic site, not a dispenser of truth.
I expect it was about Paul Feldman -- it was a very interesting story -- the guy was an MIT-trained economist who, in frustration at getting nowhere at a certain point in his career, gave it up to deliver bagels, etc. to companies every day and he collected data on people's behavior when it came to leaving payments.
The following NY Times Magazine article is by the Freakonomics duo about him (the story made it into the Freakonomics book):
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/magazine/what-the-bagel-ma...
PDF of the same article from one of the authors (i.e. a non-nytimes.com link):
http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/WhatTheBagelMa...
Although your anecdote is just as anecdoty as the comic author's anecdote...
You'd be surprised. Do you have anything to validate that statement?
Because the empirical observations of anybody on this internet thing (forums, comment threads, etc) suggest otherwise.
Perhaps you start from a logical premise ("I don't see any connection between cruelty and anonymity") but forgot to take into account human psychology factors (e.g "Hmm, I can harass that guy a little harder, it's not as if he knows who I am and can get back at me").
Yeah, there's only scads of research that shows that anonymity leads to bad behavior and that being reminded of yourself (mirror) and other people (photographs) watching you -- even non-human robot faces watching you! --causes people to improve for the better.
Mirrors and pictures of faces cause people to behave better -- to steal fewer "honor system" vegetables, bagels, flowers, to donate more to charity jars, to stick more closely to their diet plans, etc.
In the 60s, an anonymous student wore a black bag to class at Oregon State for a long time… the essay reporting on its effects that I read that 'The Black Bag' suffered a lot of bizarre and anti-social behavior from fellow students, so bad behavior related to anonymity cuts both ways.
You may think that the "concepts" are orthagonal, but let's be honest, aren't you just working a priori here without any evidence?
> cruelty and anonymity go hand in hand
Anonymity and cruelty are orthogonal concepts - there is nothing about anonymity that implies or requires cruelty, and the connection runs the other way just as often, but as human beings, we find it easier to focus on and remember the negative more so than the positive.