Comment by Manuel_D

> but even if it was, we would still need to have anonymity, including all its drawbacks, in order to make participating in the public sphere possible to all, instead of being restricted to a privileged few.

You realize non-privileged people have participated in non-anonymous forums for ages. What on earth justifies the statement that without anonymity public discourse is impossible for non-privileged people? You realize that just because an article on geekfeminism.com claims something is true... doesn't actually make it true?

It's just a demonstrably false statement. Take, say, labor organizing. People who weren't privileged participated in the public sphere in a non-anonymous fashion. The Civil Rights movement was spearheaded by people who were de jure second class citizens. I could go on with example after example of people who weren't privileged participating in public discourse with their real identities. I'm truly at a loss as to how one can assert that anonymity is necessary to "make participating in the public sphere possible to all, instead of being restricted to a privileged few" in spite of the all the non-privileged people throughout history who participated in public discourse under their real identifies. It's objectively not necessary.

> You do know that this very forum qualifies an an anonymous space, right?

Correct. Which is why commenters are emboldened to say demonstrably false things, like claiming only privileged people are capable of participating in non-anonymous public discourse. I'm willing to bet that without the shield of anonymity people would actually think through such a statement and consider the number of non-privileged people that have participated in public discourse. They'd think twice before making patently false statements under their real identities.

But with anonymitiy, one's reputation isn't tarnished by making false statements. So here we are.