zlacker

>>rapnie+(OP)
Ironically, one of the things that's worst about being online is often the lack of social control. By now, just about everyone has hadone of their previously normal-seeming friends or relatives go on an insane political rant on Facebook, or had a Twitter troll show up in their replies, or read just about any comment on YouTube. People act in these horrible ways because they can, because real or effective anonymity lets them do so without disapproving looks from people whose approval matters to them.

The solution to privacy issues is not to make everyone anonymous. (Nobody ever actually puts it that way, but a lot of people suggest solutions that basically amount to the same thing.) Under-identification is as much of a problem as over-identification. Reputation and social pressure also prevent a lot of bad behavior. For that to happen, we still need people's identity to have some continuity ... and that's where pseudonyms come in. Go look at the examples in the OP. Practically all of them involve some kind of "leakage" from one part of a person's life to another. This is the same problem that has existed since before computers, with people having safe persistent identities within one community until they're "outed" to the broader one. If people had more control over the different parts of their identity, to connect them or not as they see fit, these things couldn't happen. Better technical and social support for pseudonyms might not be a panacea, but it would certainly go a long way.

>>notaco+3C1
I agree with the OP and you. They are not mutually exclusive views. Perhaps the solution is privacy that protects you for data aggregators and “joiners” that pull together a ton of stuff to infer things about you, but not necessarily completely shield your identity online.

Hard problem for sure, and curious to hear how others think about the issue of minimizing trolling while maximizing privacy.