Interesting you should bring this up. I’ve just had a very unpleasant exchange with someone over exactly this point. This guy had written a one-sided comment to somebody’s article on the current Israel–Palestine catastrophe, condemning the actions of one side but not the other. I replied back quoting his exact words with the names and details suitably reversed to apply to the other side. This was admittedly a snarky thing to do, but I did it to make the point that everything he said applied equally in the other direction as well. He answered as follows (excerpted to include just those comments pertinent to the current point about anonymous posting; you can find the full thread here if you’re so inclined):
Hark, the voice of reason chips in!
. . .
Why not reveal your identity and take full responsibility for the things you say, you cowardly warmongering anonymous shill, the opposite of what you claim to be.
I replied:
Wow, look at the venom! For quoting your own words back to you and suggesting you apply your sanctimony even-handedly.
After refuting his substantive points (elided from the quotation above) in what I thought was a calm and civil tone (I do, after all, aspire to be the Voice of Reason), I closed with
If you have something civil and constructive to say to me, I’m listening. If all you’ve got is vitriolic name calling, save your breath.
My interlocutor replied:
Believe it or not, there is far worse I could say to you, I was actually restrained in what I said. What is venom, used against ghosts?
The point is that nothing you say as an anonymous profile commenting on real events can do any good. There are literally billions like you muddying the waters of truth, propagating lies. If you happen to be for real, genuinely trying to help fix problems, you would not hesitate to use your own real identity.
If you really want to contribute truth, then you should ditch the anonymous identity friend, so that you can do like Niemoller advises.
Otherwise people like me will keep calling you out as just another bot, you can’t defend a word you say if you can’t be held responsible for it. . . . Why not just sod off out of it. At best you know nothing about this issue. At worst, you are a paid shill.
I answered:
My use of a pseudonym on my Medium account long predates the current events in Israel and Gaza and has nothing to do with them. It’s just a nom de plume; there’s nothing sinister or cowardly about it. (Ask the @Argumentative Penguin.) If you go to my profile page and open any of my published articles, you’ll find my name clearly displayed in the Creative Commons notice at the end of the article. In any case, it has no substantive bearing on the present conversation.
I then went on to respond to his substantive arguments, point by point, in the same reasonable tone as my previous post. Here is what I got in return:
Lying shill. Lying Shill. Lying Shill. Cowardly lying shill, won’t even put a face on their cowardly lying accusations. If I am so bad why not report me to the platform. I dare you to try, as an anonymous shill yourself. I’ve reported you. Lying Shill.
It was at this point that I blocked him: the first and only time I have ever blocked anyone on this platform or any other. I also took him up on his suggestion and reported him for harassment, though I don’t see that anything has come of it.
I leave it to others to judge who in this picture is the cowardly lying shill.
