Comment by msla

> I am of the generation and mindset that online abuse is not real. Straight up. Log out, turn off the screen and watch Netflix, take a walk and calm down, block the offending user. It's not real.

Until people can pierce the veil of your pseudonymity (which isn't all that hard depending on the platform and the person) and it isn't just online abuse and harassment anymore. "Tied to your real name" includes "tied to enough information about you that someone with plenty of free time can sift through various databases and piece it together" and most people have absolutely no idea how many such databases there are, and how much piecing someone can do.

I'll say something tangential: Even if we both agree that one-off assholes are largely inconsequential, and I think we do, such assholery has a broken window effect on a platform, where people see all the assholes running free and decide that it's either a place for them to be assholes or a place they should stay away from to avoid assholes.