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Huffington Post ends commenter anonymity

theguardian.com

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Re: Huffington Post ends commenter anonymity

#41

Post by [deleted] »

king_jester wrote: post #24
zeteo wrote: post #6

>I just came from London where there are rape and death threats This is wrong on so many levels. Yes, anonymity gives people a wider range of expression and some use it badly. Did she stop to consider those that use it for good? Say goodbye to comments such as "I work for the government and I see so much waste everyday" or "I'm secretly gay, and here are some reasons why I don't feel safe coming out". We might as wel…

That anonymity also allows for people to make direct threats against other non-anonymous posters and gives leverage to people who doxx others. Its up to each site to weigh the pros and cons and it is totally legitimate to say that downside outweights the upside.

[deleted]

Re: Huffington Post ends commenter anonymity

#43

Post by showerst »

twodim wrote: post #27
king_jester wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That anonymity also allows for people to make direct threats against other non-anonymous posters and gives leverage to people who doxx others. Its up to each site to weigh the pros and cons and it is totally legitimate to say that downside outweights the upside.

Anonymous threats doesn't harm anyone.

That's absolutely, categorically untrue.

If you received a death threat on hacker news that listed your full name, and your kids' school addresses, wouldn't that give you a panic attack? I'd call that harm without a doubt.

Re: Huffington Post ends commenter anonymity

#44

Post by showerst »

dfxm12 wrote: post #36
Karunamon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the general case, this is true, but in the specific case, not so much. While a threat doesn't actually do any harm to a person, it does ruin discourse. Reason being that some people are more sensitive than others, and will not post things that they feel are controversial or personal since they feel they'll be challenged or threatened for it. Even if those threats are completely bunk and amount to nothing but troll…

If discourse is the problem, what's wrong with some sort of HN/Slashdot/Reddit-like crowd sourced moderation? That's the way to solve that issue.

That might work for a very small community, but past a certain size it fails. Even reddit has had a large number of times that doxxing or threat's 'slipped through', not to mention things like the white supremacist subreddit that encouraged it.

Re: Huffington Post ends commenter anonymity

#45

Post by showerst »

nsxwolf wrote: post #34
zeteo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the anonymity, it's the lack of consequences. In big cities, people are casually rude in traffic even though they can see each others' faces; but they'll probably never meet again. The clerk at the DMV treats you as shitty as they can get away with. By contrast, an anonymous seller on eBay may go to great lengths to make you happy beyond the terms of service, just because your review will stay with them.

Look at sites that use Facebook for comments. People have no problem posting utterly insane and threatening things with their real name, with a picture of them smiling with their kids.

I'd say that happens a lot _less_ on facebook though compared to a site like reddit, because more people are cognizant that they're using their real life identity.

People also post pictures of their shiny new credit cards to twitter, it's not because they don't care about fraud, they're just not aware of how twitter works.

Some small portion of people really don't care and will gladly threaten to rape you under their real name, but I'm guessing that the majority of the ones you see are people who just aren't very internet saavy.

Re: Huffington Post ends commenter anonymity

#46

Post by Karunamon »

dfxm12 wrote: post #36
Karunamon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the general case, this is true, but in the specific case, not so much. While a threat doesn't actually do any harm to a person, it does ruin discourse. Reason being that some people are more sensitive than others, and will not post things that they feel are controversial or personal since they feel they'll be challenged or threatened for it. Even if those threats are completely bunk and amount to nothing but troll…

If discourse is the problem, what's wrong with some sort of HN/Slashdot/Reddit-like crowd sourced moderation? That's the way to solve that issue.

Once the post is there, the damage is done. It'll stay in its position for a while before being modded to invisibility. If it makes our hypothetical user think twice before posting, game's already over.

And if using a threaded system like HN,/.,Reddit, etc, if the threatening post is the only response to a comment, downmodding it doesn't accomplish anything.

Re: Huffington Post ends commenter anonymity

#47

Post by Karunamon »

rtpg wrote: post #8

I really hope that we can figure out this whole "people being absolutely terrible on the internet" thing. A lot of people say that it's just because this is how people really are, but I'm not convinced. I know for a fact that I'm a lot ruder on the internet than I'd ever want to be in real life, regardless of consequences. I've found that "real name" policies help (not necessarily forcing a real name, but at least tr…

I'm not sure it can be solved.. This problem will always exist as long as the 3 pieces are still there:

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/4650/intratnetdumbqv9.jpg

(nfsw language)

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