Why Online Anonymity Is A Huge Threat To Digital Civility

It's not the anonymity that's the problem, it's how bad actors choose to use it.

Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels

Imagine you post content online and see Insightful discussions and compliments while scrolling through your comment section.

Depending on the amount of engagement your post received, if you keep scrolling down deep enough, you’re almost bound to see a barrage of negativity. People hide behind their usernames and obscure avatars to hurl insults and unwanted critique at you without a care in the world.

It’s difficult for the content creator to see, but it could also be equally damaging to the creator's audience.

While anonymity is a way to empower shy people like me and allow us to be brave when interacting online, it can also be used to empower toxic people who only mean harm. I sincerely believe anonymity does more harm than good in the online sphere.

The 'bystander' and 'emboldened' personas

When we see bullying happening in real life, many of us can’t help but interfere and help the victim. But when it happens online, some can sometimes be hesitant to interfere and choose to ignore it because the anonymity of the Internet prevents them from truly caring.

It simply doesn’t feel REAL to them.

There’s nothing to attach their empathy to.

That is the ‘bystander persona’.

Now, without facing social consequences, people become much more likely to engage in rude, aggressive, and unwanted behavior.

They become the ‘emboldened persona’.

Outside my writing career, I'm a digital artist with over 11.4K followers on Instagram. I am usually showered with positive feedback that pushes me to get better. This is a reel that went semi-viral on my page with almost 300K views.

Mr Jay on Instagram: "A more detailed look at my process... I hope you find it useful! 🙂 . . #art…

Of those 185 comments, most of them were heartwarming until I saw a comment that said:

You are wasting your time, and you will never amount to anything sitting in your room and painting ugly art all day. Go touch grass.

That single comment ruined my day.

The truth of the matter is they likely would never say those rude remarks to my face. The veil of anonymity promoted by obscure usernames and avatars is what gives them the courage and boldness to dilute their empathy and respect. I immediately reported the comment to Instagram and had it deleted.

This negativity stands as a huge wall against genuine conversation. As someone who values genuine conversation, I believe anonymity creates an environment where everyone is shouting and no one is listening or caring.

It is not conducive to an online environment where people can share ideas properly and respectfully.

It creates a breeding ground for misinformation

When you can’t be held accountable for what you say online, it makes it easier to say just about anything without caring about the consequences or how it hurts the people concerned.

I can just sit here in my bed and say something so bizarre, disrespectful, and uncalled for, and the worst that could happen is I get canceled. Being canceled isn’t a scary enough concept for someone who hasn’t built anything of value online.

The internet has always been a breeding ground for misinformation, but anonymity has enhanced it by removing accountability.

People can create fake accounts, pretend to be someone they’re not, and can do so as many times as they want with different emails and passwords.

This can have serious consequences, from changing and altering people’s belief systems to inciting hate against any group of people for no reason.

A rumor spread online around my college a few years ago. The rumor stated the college chancellor died. No one knows who started it, but almost everyone believed it.

It was an entire propaganda that took the college by storm.

It was false. The chancellor himself made a public statement stating that he was alive and well. No one was held accountable for that misinformation.

They even made very believable photoshopped images and engineered audio just to deceive the public. It’s disturbing the lengths people would go to create and distribute misinformation.

It destroys the pillar of trust

Continuing from my previous point, people are now aware of the misinformation being spread online ANONYMOUSLY. You would think that is a good thing but it isn’t.

People for good reason, now doubt everything — even the things that are true.

Today, anyone can get a verified checkmark on social media with a little bit of money and patience. This used to be given to people who were at a high risk of being impersonated, but now it is being sold to anyone who can afford it, which defeats the purpose entirely.

In a world where anyone can be anyone or anything online, how can you know who to believe? Are you sure you’re getting investment advice from a professional or a high school student who isn’t even old enough to own a credit card?

Is that scathing Yelp review written by a customer who wasn’t satisfied with the business or a competitor trying to make the business look bad?

My mother once got scammed off $150 on the internet. She was in dire need of money and saw a website that promised to give her a loan worth $5000. My mother was extremely trusting and desperate so she believed it.

She was then taken to a page where it asked her for her credit card details. She willingly gave everything to them. The card number, the expiry date, and the three-digit number on the back of the card. They then asked her for the pin and she gave that out as well.

Immediately, after she sent them the code her bank sent her, they emptied my poor mother's balance.

Good thing she uses multiple banks and only had $150 on the corrupted account. She reported the case to her bank and the issue was cleared but she never got her money back. She wanted a loan of $5000 — instead, she became $150 poorer.

She normally asks me before interacting with suspicious websites on the Internet, but this time, I was at school and she said she didn't want to bother me. Now, my mother doesn't believe a single thing she sees on the internet — she even refuses to surf the web these days because she's afraid the incident might repeat itself.

She no longer feels safe.

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a difficult and confusing world where people use the Internet’s anonymity to weaponize information. This raises our alarms as we have no idea what to believe in anymore.

The internet could be a hub for trustworthy interactions and information that everyone in the world can benefit from. Instead, it has become a guessing game.

We need measured solutions

So, does this mean anonymity is completely useless and should be discarded? Not necessarily. Anonymity can be positively utilized by whistleblowers and activists fearing persecution. It can be used to empower women to stand up for themselves without ever giving away their security.

Getting rid of anonymity is not the answer. The real answer exists in the balance.

Perhaps we can implement a system where people can verify their identity with a degree of privacy enough to keep them safe but not so much that there is zero accountability.

Online platforms can decide to get serious about getting rid of fake accounts and spammy behavior. I’m happy to see that a lot of them are stepping up in that regard.

Users of said online platforms should refuse to become ‘bystander personas’ and report abusive behavior whenever they come across it. This will make it difficult for wrongful actors to thrive.

The internet has the potential to become a massive agent of good. But unless we address the issue of online anonymity, I believe its potential will never be realized.

By coming up with ways to hold people accountable for what they do online like how we handle it in real life, we can create a safe space for more civil and trustworthy interactions to take place.