I feel it’s less about anonymity and more about being part of a tribe. When you identify as part of a tribe, anonymous or not, you’re more likely to follow social conventions within that tribe. When the tribe grows and nobody recognises anyone any more, suddenly you’re among strangers, tribal norms break down, and being an asshat is on the table for some. We saw the same thing happen recently with Reddit (anonymous) and Facebook (known).
Facebook has recently gone anonymous, they’re now letting people create additional accounts that “don’t need to use your real name”… can’t wait to see what 3 Billion anonymous users pushed together into a single place, can come up with.
I feel it’s less about anonymity and more about being part of a tribe. When you identify as part of a tribe, anonymous or not, you’re more likely to follow social conventions within that tribe. When the tribe grows and nobody recognises anyone any more, suddenly you’re among strangers, tribal norms break down, and being an asshat is on the table for some. We saw the same thing happen recently with Reddit (anonymous) and Facebook (known).
Facebook has recently gone anonymous, they’re now letting people create additional accounts that “don’t need to use your real name”… can’t wait to see what 3 Billion anonymous users pushed together into a single place, can come up with.