Do you not feel that the ability to do things online without fear of some of the recriminations you would receive in real life is also one of the great things about the internet?
If you mean blogging about political issues from within China, then yes.
If you mean forgoing any semblance of social decency for the sole purpose of antagonizing people and destroying positive discourse or social interaction, then no.
I guess it can be argued that you cannot partially support freedom, as it is only sold as the whole, but I also feel that there are laws that can mediate this middle ground.
Although I am not always the biggest fan of 'Johny Law', I do feel that at least the law can step in when harassment or threatening behavior is occurring to reduce its presence. Most of these participating in trolling behaviors would not continue their actions after a couple of rounds in the courts and after paying the associated fines...
And the troll communities are aware of this. The only problem is that, as the article points out, no objective standard of "cyberbullying" can be established. Most of it does not even fall into the ethically debatable category of hate speech, despite the meaningless spam of ethnic slurs these groups use.
The troll groups will push the law a lot more softly than they'll push private citizens -- they crack down on child pornography in their own ranks to avoid being "v&" ("vanned", or "sent for a ride in the party van" -- the FBI). So if we extend the van-hammer to mere insults, we might get them to back down... but do you want to live in a country where calling someone names on the internet, even horrible hateful names with full intent to hurt feelings and disrupt mental equanimity, gets you arrested?
While I do feel that the anonymity provided on the internet has great value, I also feel that positive things can be exploited in a negative and counter productive manner.
Just as trolls exploit this aspect of privacy to attack people that they likely would not have the courage to in the real world, so too do pedophiles exploit children that they otherwise would not in the real world. Using this same anonymity, con artists, thieves and all varieties of low lives are able to orchestrate their attacks and subvert the societal protections that would obstruct or prevent their attacks in the real world.
I guess it is all about the person and their moral compass, or in some case, the lack there of. I certainly do not believe that this privacy should be removed from the net - actually I strongly support its preservation. This said, I make a habit of only doing or saying things online that I would also do or say in the real world.
I do however feel that when these facets of anonymity are exploited to the degree that a criminal offense is occurring, the douche bags who are crossing the line should be tracked down and handled - i.e. the story in this article of the parents receiving multiple calls from little pricks after their son's suicide - I am pretty sure that can at the least be construed as harassment and should be criminally perused as such.
In this example, you have misguided youths tormenting individuals who are already suffering greatly - these same youths a) would not like this being done to them had their parents or siblings also died (golden rule) and b) likely would not do this without the separation of the web or the phone system our of fear of having their asses kicked, which is sad in itself...
