
Does Anonymity Encourage Telling the Truth? - TL_ROBINSON
I working on a case study and need some info. Question: How many of you would tell the complete truth about yourself or be completely vulnerable if you identity was 100% hidden? If not, what information would you not disclose?
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sharemywin
That question is a little ridiculous.

I wouldn't tell you about the time I was molested by my dog when I was 5.
oops...I told you.

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emsign
You're never truly 100% anonymous online, also anonymous platforms are usually
broadcast type. Meaning single users broadcast things to a possibly infinite
number of receivers, usually it's even public with no access restrictions.

And me personally I'm much more likely to tell people personal or private
stuff after we both got to know our real identities. It's a matter of trust,
knowing someone's identity is a sign of trust or mutual accountability. If
stuff ever got out, I know who it was that leaked it and thus they get never
talked to again. And both parties knowing who knows what prevents them from
leaking, because both want the relationship to last (until they don't and
that's when the tea gets spilled, or not if both people hold each others tea
hostage. Game theory aside, I don't spill tea because of morals anyway).

Whereas I don't really know who it is I am talking to in an anonymous or
pseudo-anonymous environment or the number of people reading or listening to
it, that seems highly risky to me. If anything it gives me much less control
over my private stories and infofmation.

This does not mean I will tell every person I know the real identitiy of
everything, of course. But if you want to get to know me personally I want to
know your name first and you should know mine as well. Me telling a secret to
an anonymous "crowd" though? That will never happen, or ideally it shouldn't.
If it does, it's because I don't consider it something I would hide anyway.

Same goes with disclosing corporate secrets and things like that. I would
never do that anonymously. First of all, me showing this special knowledge
most likely makes me identifiable anyway, so I would need to trust the
recipients no matter what. And if they are anonymous as well like when I use
Twitter to address some workplace issues, this could come back to haunt me,
who knows who's listening, I certainly don't. Secondly I don't see the point
in spilling the beans if it's not related to whistle blowing and criminal
investigation, and in that case I would forward the relevant information to
the authorities or journalists first.

There're so many data points that make you identifiable even when truly
anonymous, eg using a non-existant better version of Tor. The vocabulary you
use, your spelling and grammar mistakes, references to geography, special
knowledge, or expressing idiosyncratic ideas and viewpoints etc. I've analyzed
language before to identify a manipulative sock puppet. It was so easy. And
even disclosing this fact about myself is another data point that would make
me more identifiable if the right people read this post.

You can ask yourself. If you showed your friends and coworkers a link to a
Hacker News thread and gave them the challenge to identify your posts
(assuming they don't know your user name here), how likely would it be for
them to identify you? How successful would a specially trained AI be? Nobody
is anonymous, so the people who are telling themselves they can be more open
when they are anonymous are fooling themselves. I hypothesize that those who
are open anonymously and say for instance hateful and controversial things,
have a tendency to say those things in person or under their real identity as
well. Maybe not in front of authorities though.

