Online anonymity: study found ‘stable pseudonyms’ created a more civil environment than real user names

Published: November 17, 2021 10:33am EST

Under the category of "¡No Duh!", we learn that stable pseudonyms are best. We all know that if one can set up 1-time usernames post once, and then change names, the community is a cesspool. Then we get the disingenuous calls for real names:

Real names exist so that employers and governments can censor and punish users by going after them in the real world. This policy leads to conformity and self-censorship. As an example, if one supports decriminalization of prostitution, one would be afraid to express that view.

The best policy is stable pseudonyms:

One feels free to express controversial views, but if one is a troll, one finds oneself blocked. This leads to lively, productive civil discourse.

I have been saying this since the 1990s and this has been pointed out since the 1980s on UseNet:

I better define define UseNet because spammers and brain-dead me-too AOLers ruined UseNet in the 1990s:

¿What would happen if one could post eMail-Like messages to serrvers with topic, threading, and subject to servers with new messages displacing old messages? ¡One creates a forum for expression!

UseNet started in 1979. by the early 1980s, we had Netiquette for replying to posts:

[list=1 One only quotes topics in a reply if one replies to them. One puts one's response under the topic. One interleaves responses.It looked like this:

> "We should decriminalize prostitution."

Indeed. The problems of prostitution are the result of criminalization.

> "We should require condoms."

No we should not:

If idiots do not use condoms and die of AIDS, that is on them.

You might notice that I still use this format 40 years after it was invented.

In the 1990s brain-dead me-too AOLers and spammers invaded UseNet. The brain-dead me-too AOLers wrote messages like this:

ME TOO!

> "Hundreds"

> "of"

> "lines"

> "of"

> "quoted"

> "text."

For every message worth reading, the brain-dead me-too AOLers posted many vacuous replies; thus making UseNet not worth reading. Then came the spammers:

By the end of the 1990s, over 99% of messages to UseNet were SpamMessages.

brain-dead me-too AOLers and spammers killed UseNet in the 1990s.

Now that we got that out of the way, back in the 1980s, those posting under their real names wrote uninteresting comformal posts. They had to self-censore and go along with the group or face consequences in the real world.

Those making up a 1-time name tended to me trolls and were generally ignored.

The stable pseudonyms were the stars of the community:

They tended to be civil, unafraid of controversial subjects, interesting, diverse, et cetera.