That's unusual for NPR, and Laura Sydell is usually quite good at what she does. But yes - it's an unsupported and alarming transition, and it's what brought me to the comments here.
It's not exactly novel, though. Since online harassment on message boards and games started, people have been calling for an end to anonymity as a cure. Either a total end, meaning real names everywhere, or partial, meaning providing real names to sites that can be looked up if you behave badly. Wil Wheaton called for it loudly a few years back, and a string of other generally-progressive, internet-savvy voices have done so before and since. (Along with a lot of raving loons who know nothing about the internet, like Jack Thompson.)
There seems to be a pattern in these calls that I think explains it: they all come from people whose identities are already public and controversial online. Laura Sydell and Wil Wheaton spend lots of time being non-anonymous on the internet, and so their experience would probably improve if everyone else was 'onymized'. Meanwhile an awful lot of anonymous private individuals, especially from groups that get targeted for harassment, would suffer far more online.
End-to-online-anonymity has been floated as a cure to many things for a long time.
However: we still have anonymity in the form of;
- abusive telemarketers/harassers who spoof caller id. And get away with it.
- criminal organizations who use LLC's and shell corporations to illegally launder money, hide wealth, peddle influence, sell drugs, sell weapons, bribe congressmen.. . etc. (LLC's are the "sock puppet" accounts of the business world - let that sink in).
- Facebook: you have to use your real name (even if you're Trans, right?) but Ivan can pose as "Bob Jimbob" and get you riled up about them libruls coming to take your guns.
It's all bullshit, and giving up our anonymity and privacy amounts to unilateral disarmament while our enemies are holding us hostage at gunpoint.
> giving up our anonymity and privacy amounts to unilateral disarmament while our enemies are holding us hostage at gunpoint
It occurs to me that many of the nastiest online spaces are ones with mixed anonymity levels. On Facebook, you use you real name but can mostly block out harassers. On 4chan, you can't stop harassment but you can detach completely from your identity with each post. On Twitter... well, on Twitter professionals using their real names get hounded across the internet and into real life by anonymous eggs. It's asymmetrical, which favors the people behaving abusively.
The temptation to crack down on those eggs is understandable, they're the ones misbehaving, but it assumes we can actually succeed. If we don't, and the history of mail and telephone misbehavior should lead us to expect failure, we've rendered every space asymmetrical, and given the benefits of anonymity exclusively to bad actors. Unilateral disarmament indeed...
It's not exactly novel, though. Since online harassment on message boards and games started, people have been calling for an end to anonymity as a cure. Either a total end, meaning real names everywhere, or partial, meaning providing real names to sites that can be looked up if you behave badly. Wil Wheaton called for it loudly a few years back, and a string of other generally-progressive, internet-savvy voices have done so before and since. (Along with a lot of raving loons who know nothing about the internet, like Jack Thompson.)
There seems to be a pattern in these calls that I think explains it: they all come from people whose identities are already public and controversial online. Laura Sydell and Wil Wheaton spend lots of time being non-anonymous on the internet, and so their experience would probably improve if everyone else was 'onymized'. Meanwhile an awful lot of anonymous private individuals, especially from groups that get targeted for harassment, would suffer far more online.