The pros and cons of being anonymous online

by Joanne Petty

Cons

• People are a lot meaner when they know there are no consequences for their actions. Those who post anonymously are free to form malicious opinions, which can offend the writer of an article or another fellow commenter.
• The concept of being anonymous makes people more daring, and on websites such as ChatRoulette, there is a familiar sight of men waving their genitalia at the camera, which most likely offends, but for some could be a positive aspect of anonymity if you are into that kind of thing – we’re not judging.
• Being anonymous when posting reviews can sometimes be a negative thing as people who may have a connection to what is being reviewed can leave several positive reviews, misleading consumers. This occasionally happens on eBay when people may create several accounts or use their friends’ accounts to leave positive feedback for each other. For some, it can leave them feeling confused and even angry that there is no way to trace the culprit.
• People often believe what they see in print and will even believe that anonymous comments are true. Sometimes this can occur when people edit Wikipedia, and even though the pages are rectified quickly, users of the site often believe that everything on there is gospel.

Pros

• If someone posts something online that is extremely libellous, it is possible to trace the culprit through their address and serious action can be taken, so in some respects anonymity is just a mask.
• Those who criticise being anonymous may not be used to having their work critiqued, and therefore may be more offended by honest comments about their work than if they were speaking to someone face-to-face.
• As proven by the group Anonymous, being nameless can bring people together, and because there is such a large following their protests can often make a big impact.
• Although people like Orlando Figes may go unnoticed for some time, people who abuse their anonymous powers will eventually get ousted and ridiculed by their counterparts, as they simply did a bad job of keeping a low profile.
• Anonymity has been used to people’s advantage years before the birth of the internet. Authors of books often write under a pen name to protect their reputation. For instance, the writer Brooke Magnanti aka Belle de Jour wrote an infamous online blog for years about her life as an escort, which was then turned into a book and a TV series.
• Anonymity also protects people who are in fear of persecution, remember that.

Comment

I have been a regular user of an online community for years, and what I have noticed about being anonymous is that people enjoy the game that often comes with having no identity. They like creating personas to ‘troll’ other members, but offline are nice people. From my experience there are two types of internet folks: those who act the same offline and online, and those who create a scene and see posting on a forum as a game. Ultimately, the feeling of being anonymous gives users somewhat of a poetic licence to be outrageous, even if they are posting in a tight-knit community where people may know each other offline. I don’t think that being anonymous is a bad thing, as it is often hard to enforce any laws on the internet. As the internet is such a large place I think it will be hard to ever tame it, and I think that people will always want the right to be anonymous, not just online, but offline too. It promotes a freedom which we all have the right to and online groups such as Anonymous certainly prove this.