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Comment by patrickaljord | Hacker News Reader

I'm personally not a fan of anonymity on the web, most people are using it to insult others, being racists, bigoted and cowardly telling you things they wouldn't tell you to your face. If you live under a repressive government or need to whistle-blow, then sure, post your critics on an anonymous blog or to wikileaks, but apart from these rare cases, people should take responsibility for what they say and stop the annoying coward attacks. This is how it works in real life, when you have a comment or critic to do, you show your face and who you are before talking.

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I really don't get this "don't say it online unless you'd be prepared to say it to their face".

Does this mean that I shouldn't be prepared to express opinions unless I'm prepared to defend myself physically for holding those opinions?

As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I argue regularly (using a pseudonym) on one of my local football team's forums against a group of racists. Those racists are people who I'm pretty certain have used violence in the past, and I'm pretty certain would be more than happy to use violence in the future. I'm personally not a violent person, so should I simply keep quiet and let the voices of those prepared to use violence be the only ones that are heard?

These racists probably wouldn't post their racist coward attacks if they couldn't post them anonymously. Whether you argue with them using your real name or not won't change their opinion and won't change the fact that anonymity allowed them to spew their racists comments in the first place, you're wasting your time. Oh, and if you know who they are and know they attack people violently, you should call the police.

>These racists probably wouldn't post their racist coward attacks if they couldn't post them anonymously.

You don't get out much, do you?

I was born in Paris, France. Lived in Syria for 5 years then I got back to Paris and now I live in Arequipa, Peru. How about you dear?

And you still think that violent racist football fans all hide behind anonymous names on the internet? How sweet.

I've never been to an internet forum dedicated to football fans, it sounds like the most terrible way to waste time. But if that's your thing, how sweet.

Unlike commenting on this forum of course.

And I notice that your lack of knowledge of the subject didn't stop you commenting on it.

The racists don't post anonymously. Pretty much everyone knows exactly who they are, and the kinds of violence they have been happy to carry out in the past. As for reporting them to the police - several of them are well known to the police and have been done for their crimes in the past. Others - we have no proof of what they do individually, but knowing who they hang around with and what has happened in their groups, it's highly unlikely to all be just talk.

My posts may not change their opinions, but it's got a chance of changing the opinions of other people who go to these forums. Being a sports site, there's plenty of impressionable kids going there and if all they read, day after day, is links to stories about blacks or Muslims doing this crime or that crime, without any balance being presented they are going to get a pretty screwed up view of the world.

On the flip side, those who advocate for real names are often those in the best position to not be harmed by the consequences of discussing their social/political/etc. views in public.

But we’re not talking about anonymity on the web, we’re talking about choice of names in a certain social network.

I’m less likely to use G+ when I can’t use it to talk to people who aren’t using the form of their name that’s on their birth certificate. That’s quite different from anonymous griefers.

> I’m less likely to use G+ when I can’t use it to talk to people who aren’t using the form of their name that’s on their birth certificate.

Google+ doesn't force you to use the name that is on your birth certificate. They say you can use what most people call you so you aren't force to use your full second names for example. For example, if your name on your bc is Patrick John David Smith, G+ says it's ok to just use Patrick Smith if that is what most people call you.

That’s true; I was exaggerating. I’m on G+ using a highly conventional nickname for my given name, on the order of Meg for Megan.

The problem here is that many people have legitimate reasons to, for example, go by more than one name. Always having to use your most popular name is simply not good enough in many cases.

I think most people are fine with Google trying to discourage lightweight throwaways on their service. What upsets people is what seems like an inflexibility that isn’t in Google’s own interests. Advertising to me under an “alternate” name is not significantly less efective than under my most popular name. If I’m willing to use a name to socially network, clearly I have some significant commitment to it; functionally, it is a real name.

I don’t want to rehash all the arguments here, though. I just wanted to point out that requiring “real” names is not necessary or sufficient to prevent G+ from being 4chan, and shouldn’t be conflated with that.

most people are using it to insult others, being racists, bigoted and cowardly telling you things they wouldn't tell you to your face

I always hate this argument. I honestly don't give a flying fuck what most people are using it for if there exists a nontrivial contingent of people who are using it for legitimate purposes and, trust me, there are a fair number of people using anonymity and pseudonymity for legitimate purposes.

I acknowledged that fact in my comment, if you need anonymity, use a private blog or wikileaks or tor or the tons of other solutions there are out there.

You acknowledged limited and narrow cases. Taking even one example, there are a number of transgendered people holding conversations on online forums anonymously or pseudonymously because of potential IRL consequences if people they knew linked them to the posts. Giving these communities this sort of safe haven is worth all of the asshole anonymous posts we see across the web, and they're only one example.

I talked about opening a private blog, a private forum would be fine too for people who need to remain anonymous.

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