Oddbean

Good point! Especially the part about the confrontation of arguments instead of people! This happens all the time... People are ready to attack an idea before they even read it, based on who posted it!

I think people do that to anon handles too because once their views get known, it’s the same. People like Catturd on Twitter, people will call him a fascist or whatever. For smaller anon accounts you can look at their posting history or bio too. I think basically people just want to hate on someone or something will attack the poster, and having an anon handle won’t change that much. As for the privacy argument, why do you need privacy for your social media post? I mean you are broadcasting it to the world. You need privacy for your texts and emails, but social media is the *public* square. To me, the desire for privacy in the public square — unless you’re breaking top secret information — is just desire to hide. And it validates the views of those from whom you are hiding that you would want to do so.

They do it to anonymous handles too but at least the people behind those handles have a sense of protection against all those bots & trolls. My twitter account has my name on it but I feel more and more afraid to post my ideas or views because of the toxicity out there. I mean even the most common sense idea gets attacked. It's beyond comprehension. Even if I post something like: "All people should have access to air" can cause a furious debate. People on the left will call me a conservative or fascist, people on the right will characterize me an anarchist or terrorist and people on the center will invent something else. And all I would have said is that people need air to breathe. Sometimes I am cautious even to the content I press like. Right now small kids are dying in some parts of the world and if you express sympathy you are either a terrorist or a fascist (one side or the other); But actually I am just a parent who cannot imagine the unbearable pain of losing a child. That's all! As for the argument about broadcasting to the world, I wouldn't mind exposing my identity to people that we could exchange ideas or debate on some kind of rational terms. I am not here to fight with anyone. Attacking people just because you don't see eye to eye, and easily characterizing / being characterized this or that is not my thing...

You are right about this. But the solution IMO isn’t everyone going into hiding, but standing up and affirming the truth so that the trolls and haters realize they are outnumbered and rational people aren’t buying the narrative. That’s actually happened to some extent even on Twitter now where no one says shit when I point out the vaccine killed thousands of people. Before they were calling me an anti vaxxer just for being against mandates.