HERE’S THE ANSWER
Gleaned from this thread as of 8/18 2:18PM
At least I think this is the answer. Or answers.
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Because when you take the IRL identity stuff out of the process it makes communication smoother.
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Tradition. Yes, we do it this way because it’s the way we’ve been doing it for a long time. Since the birth of Facebook or whatever.
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So crazy people won’t track me down. Which seems crazy. But that’s just the kind half-acknowledged half-conscious consensual fantasy that people seem to buy into. So maybe it’s true.
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It’s better for discussion when everyone’s look, personality, gender, skin, species etc. takes less of a focus. And it takes less effort. Pseudonymous online communities have been the most popular type since the early 90s.
More and gooder words on this internet here ------> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog
Good answer!
Because we do not enjoy the invasion on our privacy.
So you’re anonymous because you like being anonymous.
No. I don’t enjoy being anonymous, but the problem lies in bodies, organizations, and people abusing the non-anonymity.
It’s like
- so you enjoy wearing a space-suit
- not really, I’d rather run around butt-naked, but given that the environment is so deadly, I’d die if I were to strip off of my space-suit
Do you understand the difference?
What does anonymity protect you from, exactly?
Plenty of things. Doxxing, identity theft, harassment, etc. Do you really want the world knowing who you actually are? To be able to find your address just by searching your name?
Well “doxxing” is just publishing your real identity. And if you weren’t anonymous then that would be moot.
So it’s the address. You are afraid of crazy people tracking you down.
why have you not posted your address and phone number yet? what are you scared of?
That’s evasive
There’s also the risk of identity theft, people contacting your place of work, and other intrusions into your life.
That’s the “crazy people tracking you down” reason.
There’s gotta be a better reason.
One I saw here is “it make our communication smoother when you take all the IRL identity stuff out of the equation” (to paraphrase).
Advertisement. Malware. Scams. Abuse of trust. Current and future exploits that I have no knowledge, or understanding of.
So if they know your identity then they can use that to take advantage of you somehow.
Can you give me an example?
Can you give me an example?
Of course, but bear in mind it’s going to be a crude, primitive example.
Imagine me talking to - unknown fact to me - a pedophile over the Internet. For reasons unknown I made him angry. Angry enough to stalk me, invade the privacy of my home and steal my child, just to make me suffer because he felt I did him wrong.
My anonymity protects me against such an occurrence.
Ya, the “crazy people tracking you down” reason. I get that reason. But really? I mean, it’s a kinda crazy reason? Are there that many crazy people here?
One nice reason I saw was “it makes communication smoother”.
Also, maybe it’s just tradition.
Friend of mine dared to have an opinion while being female.
She had shit sent to her mailbox, cat insurance providers sending her collection notices because someone signed her up for premium insurance under the name “Whore Cunt” and didn’t pay. And a lot more.
I have more examples with more people but I don’t want to enumerate them. They make me pissed and I will struggle to get to sleep. For more examples, spend a few hours digging into Gamer Gate history and see how that went for anyone having an opinion that angered the angry mobs.
That’s definitely a good reason to be anonymous.
Inaccurate, and sometimes malfeasant, implications.
Not OP, but kind of…
It’s a liberating feeling to be a part of a conversation without having to deal with social factors like gender, race, socioeconomic status, etc.
We dont have to be anonymous here. Go ahead and post your name, address, where you work. Did you just cringe at the thought? Thats why we’re anonymous here.
That’s an evasion.
P. Sherman
42 Wallaby Way.
Sydney.
I’m on my way. You’re gonna be sorry, fucko
Impressive.
Don’t you fear crazy people tracking you down and doing crazy stuff to you in reprisal for all the deviant stuff you’ve said?
Does it really matter? Why would they?
It’s one of the popular reasons for being anonymous. Sounds a bit crazy to me. But the consensus has thought crazier.
My name is Yoshikage Kira. I’m 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don’t smoke, but I occasionally drink. I’m in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I’m trying to explain that I’m a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn’t lose to anyone.
Want to have some drinks between 8-11pm?
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I cringe at the thought, yes. But that’s because I have angered people here.
So is that it? You want to be anonymous because you have angered people here and fear those people coming after you?
I have a feeling the real answer is “why not?”
That’s evasive.
Can you elaborate on that? I can’t really come up with a good reason why I’d need to know who anyone is here.
I mean this username has been in use by me for like 20 years so idk how anonymous it really is. It’s at least not directly tied to my full name though I doubt it would be very hard to find.
This is a boundary that I like to have set. There is no actual need for my shitposts and general thoughts be linked to my name. I don’t espouse hate, nor do I try to spread misinformation. That doesn’t mean that I would be fine having anything I’ve ever posted/replied to being easily linked to me.
I’m pretty sure the only reason any normal people aren’t anonymous online these days is Facebook tricked everyone. They made a walled garden for college students, made them sign up with the college email, and they were expected to use their real name to find each other. It was “safe” because of the walled garden of only college kids. They they ripped down the walls, and with the expectation of real names already established, it kept going… bad was/is listed in the terms of service for Facebook. Other sites tried to adopt this as well, when they could get away with it.
Real names make stuff like doxing, stalking, swatting, etc much easier. It’s really not safe, but Zuck doesn’t care about that.
Aside from that, there is also the practical issue of duplicate names being an issue. There are a lot of people named Mike Smith out there.
You must find some value in anonymity, since you didn’t use your real name as your username.
Isn’t it the opposite? Nobody would give out their real name online until Facebook came along and normalized it. Google then forced your personal Gmail email account to be your account for everything as well.
That’s what I said, or at least what I was attempting to say.
We’re not; we’re pseudonymous here.
Individual data points like “I take pilates”, “I work nights and weekends”, and “I live in Smalltown, ST” might not mean anything on their own, but if you can connect this data to a single person, then realize there’s only one pilates studio in Smalltown, then look up their hours and notice there’s only one day class on weekdays, you can make a reasonable guess as to a regular time when a person is away from home. This is called data brokerage.
This is a comically contrived example; the real danger is in the association of countless data points spread across millions of correlated identities. It’s not just your data, it’s the association of your data with that of your friends and family. Most people are constantly streaming their location, purchases, beliefs, and affiliations out to anyone who cares enough to look. Bad actors may collate their data and use it to take advantage of them, and the only move they have is to ask for prohibitive legislation. As if we don’t already have prohibitive legislation.
Anonymity is expensive, inconvenient, and fragile, but it’s the only mechanism that protects individuals from the information economy, which I would put right next to ecology in terms of critical 21st-22nd century social problems. It also helps us resist censorship, but that’s a different essay.
Bc ppl black mail you with your personal stuff if you post it
This has never happened to me (when I posted personal stuff). Has it happened to you?
Why do you want to know who I am irl?
I must know if you’re really my uncle who is also a parrot.
I really am, but I have 4 total, 2 macaws and 2 parrotlets!
That’s evasive.
No it isn’t.
but, why do you want to know who I really am?
That’s evasive
Why is this being downvoted? It’s a really good question and one that should be available to everyone if they ever think about it in the future.
OP’s comment replies are also being downvoted even though it drips of genuine curiosity. Why are the Lemmings behaving like Redditors?
To avoid the inflatable neighbor syndrome which is a plague in Facebook and the likes.
Leaving aside the fact that we aren’t anonymous, pseudonymous at best, this is essentially my common law name. Back in the day (before everyone got married and/or moved away) you could go into my local and ask for the Emperor and someone would be able to point me out.
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