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Comment by purple-again | Hacker News Reader

Imagine how much better the discussion would be on sites like Reddit if the default was Real Identity and some sections were anonymous. How much better Amazon reviews would be. The return of commment sections on major news articles (the shit show or sexist racist trolls would stop almost immediately if you faced real life consequences).

I wonder if there is a market for a verified Online Real Identity service that could be used to solve some of these cancerous corners of the internet that comes with anonymity.

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>>the shit show or sexist racist trolls would stop almost immediately if you faced real life consequences

Facebook comments don't seem to stop these. I'm shocked at what people post under their real name with a social media link handy.

On a bit of a tangent, I wonder if it'd help things if it was easy to view all the comments a person has made using their FB identity? There'd be a much stronger sense in which their comments are associated with them, and potentially a greater disincentive on being a dick.

Fair point. The counter argument is there is no work around when Bob gets banned from CNN for constant racism. He can't create another account and start up again.

The service could have cleaned itself up instead of being removed.

> Imagine how much better the discussion would be on sites like Reddit if the default was Real Identity and some sections were anonymous.

You mean how uninteresting, fake and boring reddit would have been and is starting to become because of censorship? Do you think lgbt or atheist or porn subs or joke subs any other subreddits would exist without anonymity?

> The return of commment sections on major news articles (the shit show or sexist racist trolls would stop almost immediately if you faced real life consequences).

Perhaps sexist or racist comments may decline - I highly doubt it. But so would every other type of comments - including lgbt, atheism, anti-drugs, anti-corruption, etc.

Sexism and racism existed long before reddit and the internet and will exist long after reddit.

> I wonder if there is a market for a verified Online Real Identity service that could be used to solve some of these cancerous corners of the internet that comes with anonymity.

If you don't like, then don't visit it?

Who decides what's cancerous? You? The chinese government?

You think only things you dislike will be censored. More than likely, it won't but the things you agree with will be censored.

Honestly, what's next? Lets start burning books and get rid of libraries because they have bad words?

If you don't like anonymous forums, why don't you just make one of your own with verified identities? See how interesting that is?

Black Mirror, season 3, episode 1... anyone? -- Everyone can rank each other, which yields to a publicly visible score. Interactions then become about creating "meaningful" and kind experiences. Counter-opinion, argumentative/confrontation, and (sometimes) truthiness are mostly shunned.

"exaggerated morality play about the dangers of conformity and the small pleasures of individuality". - The Verge

I'm not sure. Some subreddits cover pretty private stuff, like coping with disorders, or recreational drugs. These wouldn't exist without anonymous posting.

I'm of the believe that anonymity is a requirement for having truthful discussions. I sometimes hear people say "if you believe in what you're saying, you shouldn't do it anonymously". But there are plenty of topics that we can't discuss without risking our jobs, families and personal reputations.

I've long ago stopped commenting under my real name. I no longer sign up to services that require google / twitter / other account linking. And I have now stopped discussing any sensitive topics even when I'm writing under a pseudonym. The risk of blow back is simply too big.

And then every single comment section becomes a circle jerk just like reddit, where people are discouraged to post their honest opinions for fear of getting downvoted/banned.

In anonymous places like 4chan you can say whatever you want, and from my personal experience, it does tend to generate a lot more diversity and honest discussion than reddit. Of course, you get a bunch of shitpost and racism, but then again, those are pretty much the pillars of internet discussions nowadays.

"In practice, the forced revelation of information makes individual privilege and power more important. When everyone has to play with their cards on the table, so to speak, then people who feel like they can be themselves without consequence do so freely -- these generally being people with support groups of like-minded people, and who are neither economically nor physically vulnerable. People who are more vulnerable to consequences use concealment as a method of protection: it makes it possible to speak freely about controversial subjects, or even about any subjects, without fear of harassment."

-- Yonatan Zunger, former chief architect, Google+

https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq

>> Imagine how much better the discussion would be on sites like Reddit if the default was Real Identity and some sections were anonymous.

Almost everyone who talks about "real identity" confuses it with "legal identity" and uses government documentation for verification. This would keep basically everyone except the most privileged out of public conversations.

Plenty of people are happy to post horrible abuse under their own names, including in national newpapers. Like Katie "final solution " Hopkins.

The problem is that social reprisals depend on social status; part of privilege is being able to post abuse without adverse consequences.

I would love for this to be true, but unfortunately the migrant crisis showed that on one side some people are perfectly fine with posting hateful comments under their real name, and on the other they usually don't face any real consequences for that.

There s quite a few throwaway comments on HN too, providing interesting information.

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