Real Names on the Internet

There is a collection of legal entities who have decided that one must use a real name when using the Internet. In a recent positing of Ars Technica they relate the experience of Korea, South, not North, in banning those without real names. Now anonymity is not a right anywhere as is privacy, as one reads our Constitution. However one would like to have a right to be left alone.

Yet there are two forms of anonymity. Firs the type where I just want to be left alone, Walden Pond type if you will. Clearly our current Administration eschews that in toto, one need just look at health care. If I were to live in the woods off the land away from humanity, not having to pay taxes, I would have to find some health plan which in all likelihood I would never use. That type of anonymity has been destroyed. The second type is the type where I just want to throw stones and not have anybody find out, the type that wear a hoodie or face mask. That type is the type where they want to get in your face but do not want any return for their behavior.

The authors of the Federalist Papers were of the latter. They wanted to get in the face of those opposing certain aspects of the Federal form of government. Why? Ask some historians, but they were not the first.

The most entertaining parts of the Internet are often the comments. Here people have the feeling that they can and do say anything, stupid, inane, insulting, and the list goes on. One often laughs at the person who we do not know for their total lack of manners and knowledge. Yet rarely do they find out how bad they are.

Thus is there value to be unknown? Possibly. Yet someone's comments are all too often measured by who makes the comments. It is like Cable, we know most of those speaking are idiots, so we filter it out.