For good or for bad, whether you like it or not, there's always going to be anonymity on the Internet. Anonymity is important for on line discussions involving sexual abuse, minority issues, harassment, sex lives, and many other things. With this in mind, any restrictions on anonymity can be interpreted as a proxy to facilitate state surveillance, which has a chilling effect on the free expression of information and ideas.
This piece will examine to what extent anonymity plays a key role in safeguarding freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of privacy.
Although some people will automatically discount any anonymous postings, other people don't care who wrote it, as long as it is intelligent or funny.
Whether or not we like it, anonymity on the Internet is here to stay, so we should find ways to embrace the benefits it brings and find ways to mitigate the negative aspects through better forms of accountability. Hence, it is inevitable to conclude that public pressure generates short-term results but does not guarantee policy change.
Not that it really matters. An advantage with a pseudonym, compared with complete anonymity, is that it is possible to recognize that different messages are written by the same author. Kleinpaste and was originally intended to serve only Scandinavia.
The most practical choice was made and Helsingius intends to continue his anonymity service, but it will be interesting to see if any changes are made in the penet.