#0 - July 9, 2010, 11:03 p.m.
I think most of us can agree that there is obviously a function for anonymity; it is a tool to serve as protection for individuals. It would be dearly regrettable if a public space revealed the legal name of say, someone in protective custody whom just happened to be a patron of the site with formal knowledge but now no way to share it with the community for risk of revealing themselves. The function of anonymity is to mask, shield, and protect people's identities from conflict which would target them directly.
How we see anonymity applied in day to day life however, is a mixed bag. Both in the real world and in the digital the gross prevalence of anonymity serves its function both to protect but also to harm. The effect of anonymity is to sever accountability for your actions, why else would the bank robber wear the ski-mask? The terrorist suicide-bomb? The corrupt businessmen hide behind the guise of a corporation to fulfill his ambition? Or the 12 year old pwning a 30 year old then proceeding to further berate him under the guise of an avatar.
It’s fair to assume that without accountability we (as a digital society) are allowed a great deal of flexibility, such to the extent that we are allowed to step out of our real world shells and say or do (digitally) perhaps what is a closer representation to our true ideas and feelings. In a way it reveals to us what the inner human really is, and with that in mind I ask that you really consider what that means.
It is because of these things that anonymity is a crutch much weighed upon by today's digital society, so much so in fact that we face the idea that without anonymity it is impossible to be true to ourselves and those around us. There are those who seem to forget that our pasts were forged on the roads built by ancestors who didn't have the privilege of anonymity and were held accountable for their actions and beliefs, all to give us the world we live in today.
What we've gained is a continuation to a time honored tradition to protect ourselves and to speak our mind, but what we've lost is a rare chance to be active members in adapting and evolving as a digital community, to be able to cast off our veils and be able to talk once again to each other as ourselves, and to once again give the digital world a little of the accountability it needs to cease the abuses it suffers.
For those of you who took the time to read even some of this I thank you, and I appreciate your point of view even if it differs from mine and even if I don't agree with it. Our world would be a bland place if we all agreed on the same things right?
~Dustin Langley
