
Anonymity - gatsby
http://blog.samaltman.com/anonymity
======
moot
This is completely and utterly wrong, and only furthers my belief that nobody
in Silicon Valley actually "gets" anonymity.

I'll try to write a real response tonight on my blog
([http://chrishateswriting.com](http://chrishateswriting.com))

~~~
argumentum
> _This is completely and utterly wrong .._

If you're going to make such a strong statement, it would make sense to at
least put out a tl;dr; of your argument. Otherwise, your comment just
functions as an advertisement for your blog post. (I'm sure that wasn't your
intention).

~~~
gknoy
Given that he founded one of the most famous anonymous web forums on the
planet, I'm liable to be interested in his reasons. People being jerks seems
to be a really common thing on the internet, so I'm quite curious of his
counterpoint.

I take his link less as a blog-advertisement, and more of a "I'm more likely
to update that than edit my comment on HN". I'd love it if, after he writes
his blog post, he were to summarize it in an edit to his HN comment.

~~~
avn2109
FWIW, I have no idea who moot is, and lacking that context, it's much easier
to interpret this as mere self-promotion.

~~~
MaulingMonkey
He's the dude behind 4chan, an image board which allows/encourages anonymous
posting.

~~~
panflip
*requires anonymous posting

~~~
eurleif
Most boards on 4chan allow you to enter a name or pseudonym, if you're so
inclined.

------
rgbrgb
I've been taking a deeper look at reddit in the last couple of weeks and I'd
say real-name social networks decay in a different direction. My Facebook wall
is an extremely shallow stream self-promotion, one-liners, and food pics --
very little actual discussion. As the OP notes, it is very rare that anyone
says anything remotely controversial (or interesting).

Reddit, on the other hand feels very much alive. People talk about their
feelings, confide in each other, ask interesting questions. Not sure if it's
just the anonymity, it also has to do with the fact that the community is much
bigger so you can ask anything and someone will have an answer. However, the
anonymity certainly allows for that large group to come together for (often)
coherent conversations.

~~~
001sky
_Not sure if it 's just the anonymity, it also has to do with the fact that
the community is much bigger_

Without anonymity, the larger the social-surface area, the greater the attack
surface is. This is why as facebook grows, it becomes less useful. And why,
when it was started, it was successful based on its "exclusiveness" (.edu),
and not the other way around.

The "real reason" people wan't to eliminante online anonymity are two fold:
(1) money; and (2) power.

Advertising and fascism both require manipulative social leverage, and having
data-sets with non-anonymous correlations provides the tools to fight the old
wars of the 20th century.

The forces at work are dark and powerful and likely to win. They run through
Silicon Valley and its establishment just like they do the east coast. Becuase
at this stage, the one is just spending the money of the other...deep
symbiotic linkages mean the one cannot do without the other.

~~~
avn2109
What did you read that gave you these ideas? It seems like a genuinely
interesting hypothesis and I'd like to find out more.

~~~
lovemenot
First of all, I apologise in advance if this comment does not actually apply
to you. Obviously I don't know what you were really thinking, but I see a lot
of comments here with the form: xyz seems genuinely interesting, please
elaborate. I often surmise that the poster really disagrees and just intends
to set up a line of attack using a disingenuous first approach. Especially
where, as in this case, the parent seems unreasoning. Whether or not that was
your intent, at least some people might read comments of this form as being
disingenuous.

~~~
avn2109
Nope not being pedantic. Actually interested.

------
Kapura
If 4chan.org has taught the world anything, the first thing that people will
do with total anonymity is decay into the behaviours that they WANT to
express, but society deems unacceptable. That forbidden fruit of being able to
shit-talk without consequence will never stop tasting sweet, but I think that
it speaks more to the character of the shit-talker than medium.

Thus, I think that the "solution" to these sorts of nasty gossip apps is what
Mr. Altman has done: simply refusing to be party to the gossip. You may miss
out on juicy deets of who's done what with whom, but some things are more
important than two minutes of entertainment. It's really up to potential users
to decide if they want to get sucked into this sort of negative attention
funnel.

edit: I see moot is going to be writing a response to this; I look forward to
what he has to say. He is, in my opinion, the foremost expert on internet
anonymity (or at least he's on 4chan a lot) so I think that his perspective
should be considered highly.

~~~
Zigurd
4chan is like any subculture that gets popular enough to be noticed. Most
people condemning it have not experienced it enough to come to an informed
opinion.

~~~
Kapura
I hate to derail this topic to talk about 4chan, but I think that 4chan is
many-faceted (and, indeed, the level of anonymity has varied across time and
from board to board on the website) so I'm not certain an informed opinion
could ever be COMPLETELY informed. Certainly, somebody lurking on /b/ for a
few months might have something to say, but they're missing out on the sub-
boards, which have their own board cultures and memes in microcosm. Again,
moot goes to 4chan a lot, so I'm waiting to see what he has to say.

------
facepalm
My account will probably soon be killed on HN - like many before them. They
all die around the 30 karma mark, presumably because of the many downvotes by
feminists. I tend to be outspoken on feminist topics, which have become rather
frequent on HN.

My point is: nasty things are not the only things you can only say in
anonymity. It's also required for opinions that are not aligned with the
mainstream. I come from Germany - we have learned here that the mainstream is
not always right.

I keep considering to write about feminism in my blog, but I am actually
worried about crazy people on the internet targeting me. I don't really hide -
I've voiced my opinion with my real name as well. But I don't feel very
confident about it.

Real names are perhaps fine for tech bloggers, but there are too many subjects
where they really hamper honest discussion.

~~~
icebraining
Funny this theme cropped up, I just watched a production of Ibsen's _An Enemy
of the People_ [1], where he makes a strong argument against the wisdom of the
crowds.

That said, HN is really not the best place for honest discussion about
controversial topics; the community is incapable of dealing with them and the
software strongly discourages them. As someone who enjoys discussing any
viewpoint, even those I strongly oppose, I find it somewhat disturbing how
easily people censor what they dislike.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People)

~~~
facepalm
Thanks for the reading advice, I'll download it to my kindle :-)

------
sneak
> In fact, the closer to real identity internet forums get, the less they seem
> to decay.

Wow, I had no idea 4chan is so irrelevant. Someone should tell them.

~~~
apetresc
It's quite clear from his context that he meant "decay" as in "become mean and
nasty", not "become unpopular."

In that sense, yes, 4chan is absolutely a perfect example.

~~~
moot
Also wrong.

~~~
apetresc
Which part?

I know you're the creator of 4chan, and are necessarily going to see it "at
its best", but surely even you must agree that many parts of it (especially
/b/) behave badly?

~~~
alexeisadeski3
Less anonymity = discussion tends towards staid, boring, repetitive,
meaningless, dishonest, inoffensive

More anonymity = discussion tends towards thought provoking, creative, honest,
offensive

------
argumentum
I also deleted the app pretty quickly .. but mainly because of its annoying
push notifications sent _every time_ "someone I knew" posted something. There
was only one nasty personal attack that I saw during my brief use, and it was
about a fairly well known CEO by a putative (and potentially disgruntled)
employee.

As to Sam's argument, it's certainly important to consider the ramifications
of anonymity on civility: as users of HN we know how quickly things can
degenerate.

In an app like Secret, it could get even worse. Since the posts you see are
from either contacts or contacts of contacts, it's not hard to deduce whether
a scandalous rumor is realistic. Thus, revelations can be much more damaging
and with the attendant network effects, function like high school bullying.

We shouldn't forget, however, that anonymity has great benefits as well: the
ability to say things you really think without the fear of social & political
persecution, similarly whistleblowing. Confessing your mistakes anonymously
may take a load of your back and let you move on to better things.

Ideally, I want to live in a society where people _say what they mean_ , and
_mean what they say_. Where free speech is not merely _theory_ but _practice_.
I also want to live in a society where we treat each other with the respect
that human beings deserve.

Part of the respect that human beings deserve is the respect for their right
to speak freely without threat of persecution. As a practical matter, this
means the right to speak under their own name _as well as the right to speak
anonymously_.

------
sama
I should clarify what I meant by "decay"\--services can continue to grow, but
if the quality (defined loosely) goes below a certain point, I think it's hard
to make them into really valuable businesses.

~~~
mcantelon
Reddit is anonymous, one of the fastest growing sites on the Internet, and
Bill Gates is doing a QA on it as we speak. Seems like a site's
culture/ranking algorithms determine quality rather than whether or not a
site's anonymous.

~~~
aidenn0
Reddit is pseudonymous; the difference is important, as if it were truly
anonymous Gates would not be able to do an AMA

~~~
argumentum
It's more correct to say that Reddit (like HN) is a hybrid of anonymity and
identity. It _can_ be truly anonymous (you can quickly create a throwaway
account) or you can "prove" to the admins that you are who you say you are
(like Bill Gates).

~~~
aidenn0
That sounds like a definition of "pseudonymous" to me. Particularly since moot
has claimed for a while that part of what makes 4chan works is that you _can
't_ maintain an identity.

------
vezzy-fnord
_In fact, the closer to real identity internet forums get, the less they seem
to decay._

Define decay. People voicing strong opinions or even being assholes to a
certain degree doesn't count. It's a normal part of every community. Usenet
was full of legendary flame wars, yet the level of discourse was still very
high, and most people used real names to identify themselves.

Otherwise, all you get is a hugbox echo chamber where people with personality
disorders and brittle egos thrive in a mutual self-affirmation, eradicating
all discourse.

------
higherpurpose
I haven't used it, but from what I understand it's an app where people tell
secrets about something or someone. So that may be the first reason you may
not like it, especially if it's about you. It doesn't have much to do with
anonymity, but with the fact that it's supposed to be a community around
divulging people's secrets. So even though it's "anonymous", it's actually
_anti-privacy_.

Second, I'm anonymous on HN and I'm anonymous on Reddit. This should prove
that what you need is not to ban anonymity, but to have good enough voting and
filtering mechanisms, and a decent culture inside the community.

I'm also not entirely sure Twitter is getting better. If it is, it's only
because you chose to follow certain people. But I imagine with Twitter growing
its audience, a lot more of the "normal people", who may not be as educated,
join Twitter and say a lot of nasty stuff online, much like they would
offline.

As for Facebook, again, it may have gotten "better" for you because of its
filtering mechanism, and because in time it learned to show you only certain
types of posts.

So from your point of view, I think the main problems are with the type of
community this is in the first place, and the "etiquette" for that community,
and with Secret.ly being a new app and the founders not having enough time to
polish things up.

------
naner
This person seems to be confusing anonymity with lack of accountability. Back
in the day, when people didn't use their real names on websites, communities
relied on accountability to maintain good behavior. Some ways this is done are
through reputation systems or moderation tools. Your real name wasn't known,
but if you wanted to participate in any community you had to follow the
community rules. Anonymity wasn't a hindrance to good behavior.

Facebook and other social networks don't usually have much accountability
built in. You can be an ass on Facebook and not face any consequences. So
Facebook actually only maintains "good behavior" by allowing closed
communities (All my friends are well behaved, so all I see on Facebook is good
behavior. If I behave badly my friends will react negatively, etc.). If you
were able to look outside your own well-behaved bubble, you would see that
real-name social networks aren't able to enforce good social norms. They just
reinforce the social norms that are already dominant in your friend group.

An issue with the forced-identity aspect of social networks is you are only
allowed one identity. You are discouraged from
activities/communities/discussions that are sensitive or embarrassing or not
accepted by your dominant peer group.

Not to say there is nothing good about these real-name social networks. They
would have never reached such a broad cross-section of people with everyone
registering via pseudo-anonymous handles. Using real names makes things more
palatable and manageable for non-technically minded people.

------
xacaxulu
This probably says a lot more about the author's need for anonymity than
anything else. Yeah, persecuted Iranian journalists only need anonymity to "be
mean". Derp. Yeah, Chinese dissidents only need it when they want to say
something naughty. Living in a bubble is all comfy but let's not imagine that
everyone in the world operates from the same luxurious position when deciding
who needs anonymity and why...especially when your premise is based on
scanning 4chan or Reddit.

~~~
sama
these are examples of real need for anonymity, but something like secret would
be a bad platform for it.

------
soneca
I think the author had a negative emotional reaction to Secret and jumped too
quickly to what he thought was a rational analysis of the theme.

He grabbed a few top of mind examples that supported his theory and tried to
guess what was wrong with Secret, then extrapolated to anonymity in general.
Had he slept on the text or sent to a few friends to review it, I could bet it
would become different on the conclusions.

------
gruseom
This reminded me of an excellent post the other day about an anonymous
messaging network ("Rumor Monger") that ran inside Apple until management shut
it down:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7204558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7204558)

It got very little discussion, so if you didn't see it, I recommend it.

------
badman_ting
Anonymity is a tradeoff, and in my opinion it is hopelessly incorrect to focus
on only one side of the tradeoff. It's like saying oxygen is bad because it's
corrosive -- true, but it also happens to be essential to life.

There are times when anonymity can help people who are really in danger or who
hope to call attention to broken systems. But you're never going to see that
if you're focused on grousing about people being jerks. (I suspect that people
do this as a way of elevating themselves above the muck, so to speak, but that
is another topic entirely.)

------
jhonovich
Translation: Silicon Valley big shots don't like people criticizing them at
will, ergo this will fail.

------
ANTSANTS
Shii's essay on the strengths of anonymous communities is still the best I've
read on the topic. It comes off as somewhat naive, being written in 2004 and
updated in 2006, before 4chan had really exploded in popularity and set in
stone what people think about when they hear the word "anonymous," but I think
his assessment is still valid even in the 4chan of today. Forcing users to
check their vanity at the door really does cut down on the superfluous garbage
and keeps the conversation _about the topic_ (or wherever the topic meanders)
and not _about the people having the conversation._

If I could add a postscript to that essay, I'd say that it's 4chan's _lax
administrative policies,_ _distaste for moderation and censorship_ , and the
incredible _size_ of the community that give it its unruly flavor, not the
fact that the posters are anonymous. In the smaller, more carefully moderated
anonymous communities I've been a part of, things are much closer to the
ideals shii describes.

[http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/shiichan](http://wakaba.c3.cx/shii/shiichan)

------
zimbatm
> Anonymity breeds meanness

Only if the users aren't invested in their identity. It has also been shown
that positive anonymous communities can be built.

------
jsnk
I can see Secret becoming popular. I've obsessed with the topic of anonymity
online. I created dmtri.com in order to foster anonymity online. I believe
that people long to be honest with themselves, but the avenues of doing so is
extremely limited and difficult. I hope that Secret will be one of few outlets
for people like that.

The problem I have with Secret is that, in order to be marketable to marketers
and VCs, Secret weakened the purpose of anonymity online. Straight honesty.
Without the ability to be honest with yourself and others, anonymity online is
only half good. The community rules they have are destructive to people who
want to be honest with themselves.

------
ameister14
You don't need a more extreme example like dissidents or protesters to make a
case for anonymity. Pseudonyms have been used by people to spark intellectual
and political debate for hundreds (thousands?) of years.

When people feel like they are the only one that espouses an idea, they are
less likely to share it publicly for fear of shame. When they are given
anonymity, they can share freely and potentially find that their idea is
actually commonly shared.

------
drum
Anonymity isn't as black and white as everyone keeps portraying it. Take HN
for example - we all have usernames, some of which are our real names. Sites
like 4Chan and LikeALittle - all harbor true anonymity. I agree with Sam that
those sites decay over time. However, sites like Reddit and HN that are built
around pseudo-anonymity and voting have been able to produce thoughtful
discussion

------
nswanberg
It might have been helpful to distinguish between anonymity within small
groups (Secret) vs anonymity in large groups (4chan).

In 4chan, particularly on /b/, there are so many anonymous participants that
it's very unlikely that one person would recognize another. Someone could
write something personal about another person, and it seems unlikely that
anyone would care, and certainly no-one would remember. There are few real-
world consequences. (I found a fun paper on anonymity in 4chan by merely
searching for "studies on anonymity"
[http://projects.csail.mit.edu/chanthropology/4chan.pdf](http://projects.csail.mit.edu/chanthropology/4chan.pdf))

But in Secret, part of the point is to exchange information about the real
world. This seems to be much more likely to have ill effects, possibly like
the ones gruesome referred to in the "Rumor Monger" software at Apple that he
mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

Has anyone found anything interesting about small group anonymity? Is that a
useful distinction?

------
efnysien
Anonymity, and the effectiveness of anonymity has a lot to do with how the
site, or product is structured. With secret, you have the app directly plugged
into your friends-list, and while the content is 'anonymous', it's a watered
down version of true anonymity. All apps like this serve to do is breed
insecurity and malcontent amongst our peers.

Now imagine another version of Secret, where you truly anonymize message
sends. Instead of seeing content from your friends lists, you see content from
the world-over. Instead of some sort of petty, mean-girls-esque hate journal,
it could be a modern, 21'st century version of the confessional (not that I'm
a fan of the confessional, but you gotta admit there's something rather
tantalizing in the concept).

SV seems to be stuck in a mire where product has to revolve around one's
social group. What happened to the days of good old voyeurism?

------
ultimoo
"Give a man a mask and he'll show his true face."

~~~
teddyh
“You must discover whose face lies behind this mask, but you must _never_ know
my face. Is that quite clear?”

— V

------
calcsam
High school all over again...

------
JimboOmega
> they need anonymity for mean things and things they are embarrassed about

In my mind, it's the "embarrassed about" point that makes such an app
interesting.

Facebook, twitter, etc, is all cleaned up - the things you aren't exactly
proud of, the dark moments, etc, are removed.

Which leads to a whole lot feeling like everyone on Facebook is doing better
than you. It's nice to see the darker side of people, sometimes.

------
RRRA
So long for people in danger, in need of health information, that are LGBT and
need support, etc...

How can such a troll article get so high?!

------
smoyer
There are some individuals that _SHOULD_ have negative things said about them.
I'm not trying to be controversial but why do we insist that everyone deserves
sugary platitudes? It would be interesting to tally positive, neutral and
negative comment counts for each person mentioned.

------
geuis
Usually people share a link to the app of piece of content they are
denigrating. Might someone share a link to this "Secret" app he speaks about.

------
mey
[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/](http://www.penny-
arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/)

------
rett12
" Anonymous social networks have been (thus far, anyway) in the category of
services that get worse as they get bigger--unlike services like Facebook or
Twitter that get better as they get bigger"

~~~
mikeg8
your point here?

