After a decade of online identities coming under increasingly centralized control, online anonymity is starting to look like a threatened privilege than a right
Reconsidering pseudonymity and what it means to “be yourself” online. — In early July, when England's soccer team lost … Tweets: @hkesvani , @moonalice , @jwherrman , @wexler , @natematias , @graceonfootball , and @jwherrman Tweets: @hkesvani : Very cool to be quoted in the New York Times, though sadly not because of a cryptocurrency cult gone wrong https://twitter.com/... Roger McNamee / @moonalice : Anonymity vs Real Identity on the internet: it is a very complicated issue. There many mainstream contexts in which real names are not appropriate ... and potentially dangerous. https://www.nytimes.com/... John Herrman / @jwherrman : lots of people sounded the alarm about this shift at the time, with differing perspectives. but the world kept moving in this direction https://twitter.com/... Nu Wexler / @wexler : All of this, on internet anonymity and pseudonymity: “While there is scant evidence that ‘real name’ policies mitigate abuse, there is plenty suggesting that asking people to expose more private information can intensify it.” —@jwherrman https://www.nytimes.com/... J. Nathan Matias / @natematias : “One optimistic assumption... is that racism is so stigmatized, people wouldn't dare espouse such things under their own names (a curious read of politics, British or otherwise, circa 2021).” Great review by @jwherrman, which also cites my research https://www.nytimes.com/... @graceonfootball : Everyone in English football should be reading this. https://www.nytimes.com/... John Herrman / @jwherrman : we're closer to the “real name” internet than ever before. how's it been going? https://www.nytimes.com/...