http://www.inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/17/opinion-online-anonymity-is-the-new-robe-and-hood-of-hatred/?hpt=hp_c2

This article is specific to race, but the whole subject of web anonymity is a fascinating and often disturbing one to me. Its implications and what it does to discourse in our culture are significant, and I believe destabilizing. (Says the man who doesn't use his real name on this forum.)

Bergerdude,

The link you provided doesn't work. Check to see if you can provide a good link, because I'm very interested in the subject. There is a lively thread on the same topic in the LOUNGE section of this forum.

New things are often destabilizing, as the internet surely was and is. Many, many businesses became obsolete and extinct upon its arrival. The end result was a huge internet business model. Not a bad thing, almost everyone will agree. The net is often an ugly place, with anonymous cretins saying whatever to whomever, whenever. This does cheapen us.

However, I strongly disagree with those who would place restrictions on internet anonymity; not only because government intervention rarely achieves its desired effect, but because I believe making it illegal to speak anonymously is a flagrant violation of the 1st Amendment.

Instead, we should learn (and I am still learning) to behave ourselves wherever we speak, and post as if the recipient is directly before us.

I'd like to read that article. See if you can get the link.

Kev

Try this...

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/17/opinion-online-anonymity-is-the-new-robe-and-hood-of-hatred/

Thanks, I made the mistake of assuming I had to put the "www" in there in order for it to work. Wrongo!