20 Responses

  1. Bo says:

    It is easy to get a disqus account you just need a an email account then you can start trolling. I do not know about FF etc.What is the difference? Anonymous with Disqus or anononymous with FB, disqus etc accounts. Troll is a very subjective term. Is it an offence to have different points of view. Is it an offence not using the asslicking sir. Who decides. It use to be the webmaster. If the webmaster doesn´t like me so what? I think the users of social networks can be worse. I like Culture, Entertainment, information and debating. They are calling the majority of people on this planet trolls because they don´t have a social network account. So they don´t have any problems on FF etc with bullies, bad words, people harassing , and other kind of trolling. The reason I prefer to be anonymous on internet is I don´t want spam or shit mails, I don´t want followers, I don´t want likes, and 1000 reasons more. Is it OK to exclude non social network users from the debate?

  2. Step says:

    When anonymity is banned only the government will have anonymity to troll.

    • Stewart Gall says:

      Step or whatever,

      Look at yourself. Why are you not using your real name? Whom are you hiding from? Whom are you trying to deceive – your fellow readers – us? You are not ‘invisible’ to the probing eyes.

      Use some commonsense and logic.

      See below my response to another comment:

      Author has presented a very strong argument – Internet Anonymity only serves the interests of the governments and those who rule. It allows them to propagate their propaganda, influence public opinion, discredit honest and valid opinions, and promote falsehood.

      As for your “anonymity”, are you kidding. There is NO WAY you are “anonymous” to the ‘authorities’. They know who you really are. So, cut the crap, “Internet Anonymity is one of the great things about the internet. Can you imagine the oppression and personal endangerment if everyone had to use their real names in cyberspace?” You are NOT f***ing hidden from the authorities, period.

      Only way you want tot remain anonymous, is to troll to promote the falsehood on behalf of your masters, whether you realize it or not.

      Your “anonymity” hides your identity only from fellow web users.

      Think!

  3. Whozaho says:

    Let’s say that most of the comments on the internet are from trolls. I don’t know that to be the case, but let’s say.
    It still doesn’t matter. The point is that you can anonymously put information and opinions out there.
    Armies of government trolls aren’t going to eliminate this, but requiring real identities will.
    Like Mark Zuckerberg said, people are so much better behaved online when they’re not anonymous. Quite.
    Do you think the armies of trolls are just going to go away if internet anonymity is removed?
    By definition, these trolls spout the offical line so they’re not going to get in trouble, are they?
    If necessary, the government could arrange their identities to be hidden anyway somehow-perhaps by means of a cell phone no. that is given top them solely in order to open a facebook account or something like that.
    Internet anonymity is the exact opposite of what this article tries to make it out to be. It’s a guarantee of freedom from reprisals for telliing the truth.
    Put it this way: All previous media were able to go for the lowest common denominator. They could control the flow of information and pitch it to the emotions of the target demographic.
    Sure, there’s plenty of that on the internet. But unlike anything else, the internet allows the HIGHEST common denominator. It is as good as the best or most informative comment you can find-the sort of comment almost never found on TV, radio or newspapers.
    Internet anonymity must be retained!!!

  4. profnasty says:

    I harbor and express opinions very offensive to some people. I don’t worry about intelligent people, it’s the big dummies who lurk. I’m scared of the dark. And, complaining is fun. I highly recommend it.

  5. Liz Becker says:

    A marvelous piece. To the dot.

    With the Internet Anonymity, the door to trolls is wide open. Can you ever believe any of those phony pols and fake data?

    Look at the info on phoney “Gallup Pols”:
    “Gallup Poll results, analyses, and videos are published daily in the form of data-driven news. The poll loses about $10 million a year, but gives the company the visibility of a well-known brand.”

    They poor souls. They lose money, year after year, but keep on dispensing the “information” to the public!

    What a nonsense.

    Thank you for a very well written article.

  6. Nick Olover says:

    This article presents the case of Internet Anonymity with a completely different perspective – Very interesting. I never thought about the “dark side” of the anonymity issue. No doubt, West wants to maintain it Internet Anonymity stance.

    A very thoughtful analysis. Thank you.

  7. walty says:

    Like the jungle, if you can’t handle common sense and aren’t able to traverse amongst the good the bad and the ugly, get out of the forest.

  8. Frank Mier says:

    If one wants to remain anonymous, there are many ways to bypass any ‘real name’ policy. For example:

    BitTorrent has more than 170 million monthly active users across every country and has added millions more users through two new services: Bleep, a messaging and phone call app launched publicly this month, keeps all personal information private and safe from NSA’s mass data collections.

    Sync, released last year, is a file-sharing program that looks much like Dropbox, but it doesn’t use servers or third parties to store or move the data, so it’s inaccessible to everyone but the sender and receiver.

    Guerrilla Mail, which gives users an email address without any registration or login and deletes emails permanently after one hour, has done nearly half of its business in the past year. And Tor grew from 75 million users in 2012 to 150 million in 2013, after the NSA operation was revealed. In May, Micah Lee, a Berkeley-based technologist with media site The Intercept, who helped protect the Snowden documents from being hacked after they were released to the media, created OnionShare, an anonymous file-sharing service that uses fake domain names to protect data.

    If the normal people have the ways to hide their real identities, if they wish so, then governments and institutions with vast resources must certainly have the means to circumvent and “real name” regulations and provisions.

    China may be a different story. With their strong Fire-wall, they can block any encroachment.

    Anyway, the loser are going to be we, the people.

  9. jon says:

    I want to be registered in a slave data base where the government knows everything about me by my slave name and chip.

  10. John Wilcox says:

    A very informative article. You are right. Internet Anonymity is not in the best interest of the public. A real name policy is what we need.

    A real-name system is a system in which when a user who wants to register an account on a blog, website or bulletin board system, is required to offer identification credentials including their legal name to the network service centre. One may use an on-line pseudonym, however, the person’s real identity would be available if rules or laws are broken.

  11. Anomymous says:

    Hey! I want to remain anonymous. Keep the Internet Anonymity. Let the CIA and NSA have their millions of Fake IDs. Who cares. I want my anonymity.

  12. Larry Davenport says:

    Your article has forced me to change my views. Yes, it seems that the Internet Anonymity is a BAD idea. People need to realize what is going on. Most of the views, reviews, and comments on the Web may very well be fake – and, most certainly, are fake.

    Solution, follow the Chinese. One Name, One ID.

  13. Rockwell Z says:

    If the Internet Anonymity gone, Internet as an independent and free source of information and exchange of ideas will also cease to exist.

  14. Lee Deuchler says:

    Chinese are the masters of exploitation too. Now, they realize that the ‘risks’ outweigh the benefits, and impose the “real name” policy.

    But, your analysis is very true. West wants to maintain Internet Anonymity. People are not realizing what is behind the innocent mask of ‘anonymity’.

  15. Sue Viner says:

    Author’s point is very valid. Internet Anonymity would have gone wit the wind long time ago if it were not for the fact that the governmental agencies and the select groups exploit it to control the masses. Without the Internet Anonymity they will not be able to use the “Fake IDs” and create unlimited number of fictitious “personalities” – that is the point here.

    I fully agree with the author’s assessment. Makes sense.

    • Flower says:

      If you are trapped in a burning house, do you really care about the name of the person who rescues you? If you are so empty of your own thoughts that any silly, obviously DoD employed troll can set your head a-spin with insipid little comments amounting to nothing more than the latest stupid meme of the hour, well, sorry to tell you, but something’s going to get you sooner or later. If you cannot think for yourself, knowing who is feeding you BS isn’t going to help.

      The problem with requiring absolute ID’s of the commenters is two fold. The primary problem is the hypocrisy of the journalism industry in the USA, in that you are requested for a comment, yet after a person has “registered”, well, funny how the amount of email spam increases linearly with number of newspapers one registers with. There have been articles after article extolling the corruption and thievery of Facebook info, stealing the personal data of individuals for sale to any bidder – yet, what’s the first thing the cheezy, lazy newspapers want you to sign on with? “Oh, we want your opinion, we want your attention” shout the newspapers, yet past activity has proven that all the newspapers really want is your personal info.

      Gee whiz guys, why don’t you just cut to the chase and require that anyone putting anything on the net must do so 100% honestly. Good luck with that too!

  16. tom kauser says:

    military trying to call god? once every user name is used than god will use his real user name and the world will transform? better than what you got? Soros and the WEST got a new tool to scare opinion away from the common man? THE COMMON MAN JUST REGIRGATES WHAT TV TELLS HIM ! nothing to see out there but funny usernames and really sad opinions.

  17. Bob says:

    Internet Anonymity is one of the great things about the internet. Can you imagine the oppression and personal endangerment if everyone had to use their real names in cyberspace? What is this reverse psychology propaganda you’re trying to sell here.

    • Stewart Gall says:

      Bob,

      You are OK. The problem is with the f***ed education system that produces thoughtless compliance – accepting and reciting back what has been told.

      Author has presented a very strong argument – Internet Anonymity only serves the interests of the governments and those who rule. It allows them to propagate their propaganda, influence public opinion, discredit honest and valid opinions, and promote falsehood.

      As for your “anonymity”, are you kidding. There is NO WAY you are “anonymous” to the ‘authorities’. They know who you really are. So, cut the crap, “Internet Anonymity is one of the great things about the internet. Can you imagine the oppression and personal endangerment if everyone had to use their real names in cyberspace?” You are NOT f***ing hidden from the authorities, period.

      Only way you want tot remain anonymous, is to troll to promote the falsehood on behalf of your masters, whether you realize it or not.

      Your “anonymity” hides your identity only from fellow web users.

      Think!

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