Anonymous speech is important for anti-corruption. The Washington Post's Watergate investigation would not have taken place without the anonymous sourcing by "Deep Throat."

This is probably not the worst idea. Would mean a lot of sites go invite only though. Which might be an improvement but it does lower accessibility though.

And I don’t think it would be enough for the modern wave of political censorship. It isn’t enough to just not look at content you don’t like, you have to ensure others can’t see it either.

Stuff like semi private discord servers for example are being targeted.

Then why are you on HN? HN is a great example of where people can speak honestly and respectfully without worry of recrimination from companies or governments.

To me "post publicly" has to be contextually understood. The set of people who need to be psueodonymous is certainly non-zero, but even as a small cohort represent an exception to the norm. The set of people who need to be anonymous is highly specific, to me. It's people with legal obligations to them or from them, people at risk of harm. It's not "I feel like my free speech demands this" -note the use of "need" above. "want" is fine. I get that many people want things.

Most normal discourse, in the wider space, I believe even if you have a self chosen tag, your identity should be knowable, if some things arise. I can handle that its a high barrier to entry (to uncover it), but the supposition all posts all the time have complete anonymity, simply because you assert you want it, that the supposition fails for me.

This causes free-speechers a lot of grief. My personal view is informed by many many years participating in national and international forums discussing what hate speech does, and what free speech means. Inside any cohort who are typified as "wanting anonymity" you find people who also suffer the consequences of being targetted by anonymous hate. I don't see how to reconcile speech rights, with harm minimisation except by requiring identity, even if hidden behind a veil.

I appreciate this has chilling effects. I kind-of go to that if it chills the "shout fire in crowded theatre" thing, its done it's job.

I also appreciate its not free speech in the wider sense, and it may not even be capable of being free speech in the narrower senses for a lot of people. I think reductionism over free speech is one of those things which really falls down a hole. Almost all 'there is no constraint on my speech' claims fall over when it comes to national security (for instance)

I'm pretty sure the EFF people won't agree with me, and I mean them no disrespect. Or a lot of the IETF human rights and privacy people: likewise, I mean them no disrespect. I just come to a different conclusion from free speech reductionists, when it comes to societal/wider harms, from the lack of functional constraint on online speech, and identity issues relating to online speech.

The chinese social credit scheme is horrid. The consequences for chinese citizens of unconstrained speech, and identity is also awful. So I know there are strong counter cases to what I say.

Other than a direct threat or call to action that involves direct threats, how is speech "harmful" - sure, sometimes I get my own tyrranical bents and wish that certain things would be better left unsaid, but realistically, what is "harmful speech" besides someone with particular foul breath?

> your speech causes harm, you should have to make it right

Could you define “harm”?

The greatest damage ever done by speech (i.e. motivation to start wars, genocides) has been done by fully identifiable people. Anonymous online speech is a total red herring. All current major threats are due to fully non-anonymous people doing bad things (e.g. Putin, heads of cartels, the current head of $terrorist_group), not anonymous online commenters.

Conversely, one of the greatest threat to authoritarians is speech that cannot be easily traced. Hard to put you in prison (or cross international borders to kill or capture or threaten you) if you're anonymous.

What if your online comment is discussing the latest example of police corruption you've seen in your local PD? That would be a very local example of where not being anonymous may easily threaten you, but being anonymous can still let others start investigating.

How does speech cause harm?