The Reason HuffPost Is Ending Anonymous Accounts

[Sweet Emily J 172062]

It is my strong belief that this will be the future of the internet as we know it. A general end to complete anonymity. We aren't anonymous in person, and the internet is real life now, so why should anyone be anonymous online? It's important to keep in mind that anonymity and privacy protection are not the same thing.

 

If you read online news articles, or news blogs, and you scroll down to the comments, you are well aware that they can be a nasty place. I read articles about prostitution regularly, and some of the user comments are quite hurtful, incredibly ignorant, and often just simply false.

 

We actually kind of discussed this here on CERB recently, on the thread about Verified Membership.

 

Huffington Post has one of the most active online communities on the web. They have recently announced that soon they will no longer be allowing anonymous commenting on their articles and will introduce a new system for commenting. The argument is that people are much more civil to one another when they can't hide behind anonymity, and they have some kind of accountability.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

The Reason HuffPost Is Ending Anonymous Accounts

By Jimmy Soni

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jimmy-soni/why-is-huffpost-ending-an_b_3817979.html

 

As of next month, Huffington Post users won't be able to create anonymous accounts to post on the site; going forward, their identities will have to be verified internally. HuffPost recognizes that many people are not in a professional or personal situation where attaching their name to a comment is feasible, and this change will not require users to identify themselves in connection with each comment. Rather, we will ask users to verify their identity when creating an account, which will reduce the number of drive-by or automated trolls. The change will only affect users creating new accounts on HuffPost. Existing accounts will be grandfathered into the new system.

 

_______

 

Sometimes in great fiction the simplest moments can be the most revealing. Consider this scene from Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Atticus Finch stands waiting outside the jailhouse. Tom Robinson, the black man he is defending on murder charges, is being held inside. Unknown to Atticus, his children, Scout and Jem, are nearby.

 

Four cars approach the jail slowly and come to a stop. Men exit the cars and make their way toward the door of the jail. Atticus stands between them and the entrance. "You know what we want," one man says. "Get aside from the door, Mr. Finch."

 

The children push their way into the space between Atticus and the mob. Scout scans the crowd for a familiar face and finds one in Walter Cunningham. She offers a friendly greeting but is met with silence. She persists:

 

"Don't you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I'm Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one time, remember?" I began to sense the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance.

 

"I go to school with Walter," I began again. "He's your boy ain't he? Ain't he, sir?"

 

Mr. Cunningham stays silent. There follows an uncomfortable interval, with the entire assembly standing quiet and stock-still. Scout begins to "feel sweat gathering at the edges of [her] hair," until, finally, Mr. Cunningham breaks the silence.

 

"I'll tell him you said hey, little lady," he said.

 

Then he straightened up and waved a big paw. "Let's clear out," he called. "Let's get going, boys."

 

And thus exposed, the mob dispersed.

 

Lee's basic claim is this: We are capable of doing far worse things to one another when we do not have to own up to the things we do. The mob grants its members the gift of anonymity, but after Scout outs Mr. Cunningham, there ceases to be a "mob" in any real sense; there is just Mr. Cunningham, and associates. And when some kind of identity is attached to their group, the plans of that group carry a good deal more weight.

 

It's this tension between anonymity and accountability that is at the heart of a recent decision the Huffington Post has made to move away from anonymous accounts on its commenting platform. From its earliest days, The Huffington Post prioritized investing in its community. We wanted to create a positive environment for people to have a real conversation with each other. We pre-moderated all comments, developed state-of-the-art moderation technology, and hired a platoon of human moderators -- a 40-person-strong team to supplement the technology and ensure a civil environment.

 

But one glance at our comment section or the comment sections of other sites demonstrates what we're all up against. Trolls have grown more vicious, more aggressive, and more ingenious. As a result, comment sections can degenerate into some of the darkest places on the Internet. At HuffPost, we publish nearly 9 million comments a month, but we've reached the point where roughly three-quarters of our incoming comments never see the light of day, either because they are flat-out spam or because they contain unpublishable levels of vitriol. And rather than participating in threads and promoting the best comments, our moderators are stuck policing the trolls with diminishing success.

 

There can be tragic consequences, too. Words in online forums and social networks have real power to wound. Caroline Criado-Perez, the campaigner who successfully petitioned to have a woman put on UK currency, received almost 50 rape threats an hour on Twitter after the announcement that Jane Austen would appear on the £10 note. Or take the case of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, who ended his life after suffering years of bullying and anonymous online abuse. Here's a small sample of the unsigned postings about Jamey on Formspring:

 

"JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND UGLY. HE MUST DIE!"

 

"I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it :) It would make everyone WAY more happier!"

 

Would the disturbed people who posted these comments have done so if they couldn't hide behind anonymity?

 

It's simple and painless to decry online toxicity; it's harder and more important to do something about it. We at The Huffington Post have chosen to take an affirmative step by verifying the identities of new commenter accounts. We won't eliminate every last note of negativity and nastiness on the site, but we believe this change will offer the guarantee of a gut check.

 

Our hope is that this decision will lead to more of the robust conversations that we love having on HuffPost, and with that end in mind, we invite you to leave your comments below.

[Phaedrus 209521]

It is my strong belief that this will be the future of the internet as we know it. A general end to complete anonymity. We aren't anonymous in person, and the internet is real life now, so why should anyone be anonymous online?

 

I don't think that's the future of the Internet. I think it's the present.

 

The recent NSA-related disclosures have revealed that maintaining true anonymity, or even a pseudonym that can't be linked to your real-world self, is very hard if certain organizations decide to go after you, or if you just get caught in their dragnet. And the maintenance of privacy will become ever harder as we live more and more of our lives online; it'll become easier and easier for a random person who knows what they're doing to track you down.

 

However, there are a great many situations where people use pseudonyms, for whatever reason, and pseudonymous identities vary greatly in how easy they are to relate to an actual person (which I assume is what you were getting at). Consider this board, for example: I doubt many of us are using the names on our driving licenses. However, some of the accounts here would be easier than others to associate with a real person; it'd depend on what kind of pics were posted (for the ladies), how you access the board, and what sort of things you say in your posts.

 

But nevertheless, we care about the pseudonyms that we've constructed; we won't see someone we don't like, irrespective of the fact that we may not know their name. The same applies elsewhere; despite the fact that a pseudonym is a front for a real person, it nevertheless acquires a reputation within a community that its owner will wish to maintain.

 

It's important to keep in mind that anonymity and privacy protection are not the same thing.

 

Absolutely true, but the need to use pseudonyms (and things like VPNs and proxies and other things of that nature) is very real. Many people should not entrust the preservation of their anonymity to a third party (such as a corporation that runs a website or other service). Alas, most people seem to have little or no comprehension of how big a data trail they leave in their online lives.

[roamingguy 300292]

I can see on-line boards in for lack of a better word "conventional" websites requiring or demanding that posters provide their real name. I am on a fishing board (although my account is likely inactive by now) which you can use a handle, but when you pull up the users profile, their real name and city comes up.

But having an anonymous board with an anonymous profile behind it with no apparent link to your real name gives some comfort to posters, but also gives those who like to spam, shill and bully a comfort zone too to post their crap.

In mainstream boards taking away anonymity can fly, because serious posters won't be scared away from positing, only the spammers, shill and bully type posters won't find a comfort zone there. Fortunately here on CERB we have a moderated community monitored by Mod and Town Council, not to mention most active members here through posts shut down the bullies.

Now in a board like this, people, both ladies and gentlemen would feel uncomfortable providing such information. Probably more so that they will worry someone else on the board will discover their true identity. There are probably some ladies who keep this aspect of their lives secret from family and friends and gentlemen who don't want their SO's discovering that they partake in this lifestyle

But no one should really think they are truly anonymous. Board handle or not, your real identity could end up being traced back to you through your ISP, yes even on CERB. That said, if a requirement for providing your real name to a escort recommendation board or review board, I believe memberships in such boards will dry up

A quick few thoughts

RG

[canuckhooker 19203]

I think it is a good idea, and one who's time has come. Everyone seems to get bigger "balls" on the internet when they think they are anonymous. I don't think anyone should have anything to fear with disclosing their real identity to a reputable site such as Huffington. They are not going to de-cloak you. You can still post with a pseudonym, and they are not going to "out" you. But they can shut you down, or if you break the law identify you to authorities.

 

That should give the trolls and trouble makers something to think about before posting.