At the beginning of this unit, the answer to this question
was pretty obvious. If we banned or even monitored anonymity more, then there
would be less trolls, which would mean less harassment. But with the new
articles that we started this week, especially Gabriella Coleman’s article “Anonymity
Online Serves Us All”, anonymity is more than just a tool for people to harass
others without being known. Anonymity helps those who would have otherwise been
too reserved to speak their mind have more confidence to put themselves out there.
As Coleman discusses, when people are
able to be anonymous they can still stay civil, help others, and be honest as
well as be eager to have discussions that can lead to expanding one’s ideas. We would be able to stop trolls from
continuing to harm others with their comments if anonymity is banned, but there
would also be ideas and opinions that would not be heard or read. So, should anonymity
still be stopped?
No, I don't think anonymity should be stop. From what I understand, the problems that came from anonymity usually came from the fact that trolls do not receive consequences from their toxic behavior to the community.
ReplyDeleteSo, instead of trying to get rid of anonymity, something that is proven to have a positive side to it, why don't we give the trolls consequences they deserve? Just because their name and face are protected and hide from others, that doesn't mean their comment are. A good, or even a mediocre one, can easily delete the inappropriate comments that are against the rule of the forum. Some website with higher level of anonymity even went further and banned the user's IP address for a certain amount of time. Obviously, it's not as effective as banning the user who we know the full name and information, but anything to lower trolls' capacity to troll definitely will ended up increasing the quality of the place. I mean, once their IP address got banned, only the committed one will try to make a new proxy or whatever to keep trolling, but to be honest, not that many people have the time or willpower for something as trivial as that.
Ultimately, what we need is not to get rid of anonymity completely, but a better, more clearly defined set amount of rule, and stronger moderation.