Why would someone want to remain anonymous?

Is there a right to be Anonymous?

To start out this, the title of this post may be a little presumptuous of me.

I was reading the last few years of the comments on the website "The Last Line of Defense". The website is now defunct and has been replaced by this I came across the following quote at tardforum.

"Do I have a right to remain anonymous? No. Can I give it up when necessary? Yes."

Is there any point in trying to hide oneself or to identify oneself with words other than one's own? Do we have a right to be anonymous? No. I can choose how I wish to identify myself, that is my freedom, but I have no right not to be identified by them. If they are true people (I will leave the moral of such person open), then they are free people and may choose whatever names they wish to wear. It is all the same to me. If you are really hiding your true identity, why bother making this claim of being free at all? Are you doing this for good intentions, or are you merely trying to get attention? Is there anyone that cares about your good intentions and what do you think your motive is? Don't forget this is just one particular example and there are tons more similar to it. This is the typical line of questioning used in these situations. I am sure you can find examples for yourself if you ever read through the forums. I'm not going to go further into detail about this particular subject, I will just give some advice:

If the question here is how do I know you are who you claim to be? Well, there is no real point in giving any information. I mean, we would end up arguing about some points of interest and such. However, I think that the answer to this is simply that I do not care enough about what any given poster claims to be or to be interested in reading any information about it. It's obvious how much of the time people are claiming to be someone else simply because they are trying to prove to someone else that they know what they are talking about (in order to obtain some sort of recognition). If that is the case, there would be a pretty big lack of self esteem. If the goal is simply to show us how smart you are by being completely ignorant about everything?

Why would someone want to remain anonymous?

A person's identity is private information. Why would you not want anyone to know that you are part of a community that has a certain goal? It is understandable that a person would want to remain anonymous, even if the goal is something good.

What would happen if someone was to find out? You could have trouble getting help from the community or you could be targeted by the group. Are you a community leader? Yes. I am a leader of the organization "Citizens Against War & Militarism." We have over 500 members and we have chapters in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. I am the national chairman of our organization.

How many people in your community do not want to be identified? I would say about 30 percent. Some people in the community are very vocal. They call themselves "militant atheists" because they want to spread their message as widely as possible. They have no fear of being identified.

What do you believe will happen if people are identified? I believe that they will be harassed. I believe that there will be some kind of legal action. I also believe that some people will come to the community's defense.

What do you think of the notion that people have a right to be anonymous? I believe that this community has a right to exist. I believe that people have a right to support any cause they choose. I also believe that we have a right to communicate with each other without the threat of legal action.

Do you believe that people have a right to remain anonymous? If they have done nothing illegal, I believe that they have a right to their privacy. I believe that they can make a decision to not let anyone know who they are. I believe that I have a right to choose to be a member of this community.

What is the point of being anonymous?

Why share your ideas in anonymous fashion, knowing that, once you're finished doing your work, what you write doesn't belong to you? Why, then, bother giving out at all? In many academic subcultures - including anthropology and literature - the point of being a writer is sharing. Or you might argue that you have a duty to your peers, whose work will be more interesting for having taken risks. (That may also be true.)

But in the age of the social network, anonymity is not the same as silence. Here are six reasons why being anonymous online can actually backfire, and why you should definitely not do it, just as much as be careful about who you let have access to your personal information and how they will present it. When you're anonymous on social media, people want to follow you back. Because there is no real-name profile, or profile picture, or biography. Without that information they don't know anything about you. Your gender, your profession, where you come from, what do you like - it's a blank. And because there is no way to contact them, all they see is a bunch of links that lead to nothing (because you're not actually talking). That means for anyone online who wants to follow you back, they start with no information, and end up with no information.

It takes you longer to figure out what kind of content is really worth following. A profile has a little bit of information about you - it has context. A lot of stuff on Facebook is just links, and for anyone who has the time and patience to spend hours scrolling through pages of links, the signal is quite clear. As an observer I see something is not a Facebook page. I ask questions like, How was this created? and Does it mean anything? or What does it represent? On Twitter, if a tweet is not from a well-known person, I ask the questions on their Facebook page.

The fact that it takes a lot longer to sort what's worth keeping and what's not is another benefit of an actual name attached to the idea.