Online anonymity may be fading? What? When did this happen?

Oh hell no. Read it here: www.npr.org

From the article:

In some ways, the meteoric success of these sites could be a reaction to anonymous blogs and public comment boards, which can often devolve into name-calling and polemics. (A famous Internet axiom called Godwin’s Law holds that the longer an online discussion continues, the higher the odds that someone will compare somebody else to a Nazi.)

On this site, If past performance in any indicator, that line of demarcation seems to be the around the third comment in the thread.

Good news:

There are a number of services to help bloggers and others remain anonymous on the Internet, and there are many active online communities created expressly to foster that anonymity.

Bad news:

New technology, however, is helping tech-savvy users to expose those who want to remain anonymous.

Damn it!

And now for something completely different. What’d ya know: I rank as “centrist.” Will wonders ever cease?

Where do you land? Take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz and find out.

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

19 Replies to “Online anonymity may be fading? What? When did this happen?”

  1. I’m a liberal as well. Although I don’t consider myself to be a pansy or a fruitcake. I got a ‘personal issues’ score of 80% and an ‘economic issues’ score of 20%. Whatever that means. Lot’s of talk of Nazis on the internets, usually in close proximity to talk about Obama’s healthcare plan. It’s sickening bullshit. Here’s my take on Socialists and Nazis and the USA. The socialist party that became the Nazi party started out as a socialist, leftist, whatever party that was popular and passed lots of social policy. They became a fascist party when they took the conservative, right wing, whatever stance that resulted in the repeal of individual rights and the Holocaust. Well, there may be some similarities to the current healthcare legislation and every other socialist-type movement ever undertaken, including socialist Germany in the 20’s. I don’t think so. However, there is one big, overwhelming difference. We live in the USA. We have a 200 year-old constitution that outlines the most successful system of government existing on the planet right now. I don’t foresee anything like Nazism happening here at any time, ever. However, the time period between 2000 and late 2008 had me worried.

  2. Nuthin BUT Nazis in these parts. Buncha bike-ridin’ Nazis, I tells ya.

    Quiz put me SMACK in the middle of the Libertarian section, right where I figured I’d be.

  3. Nate, the similarity lies in our rights being taken away in tiny little steps under the guise of national security and strength. This scenario has nothing to do with left or right, power hungry bastards are outside all that even if they claim to be on this or that side.

    Today’s big pharmas are yesterday’s Nazi war chemists. There’s nobody to hold accountable and we don’t want to just shut the industry down, but to just step aside and let them handle things is irresponsible. Coming up with a plan to just do it is not the best idea and is exactly what happened to Germany.

    What was with the whole border dispute between Poland and Germany, why did that require the whole world to go to war? The powers that be want you to believe that Germany rushed in as part of their scheme to take over the world, but the facts would make you believe otherwise if you care to find them.

  4. Schultzenheimer

    Can you elaborate? I don’t suppose those facts include that next up for the Nazis were France, Britain, then Russia, followed by a declaration on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor…are you implying Nazi Germany’s intent on September 1, 1939 was somehow less than malevolent?

  5. I’m not afraid of the U.S. government.

    I’m not afraid of pharmaceutical companies.

    I’m not afraid of “terrorists.”

    “Living in Fear is Just Another Way of Dying Before Your Time” —Patterson Hood, Drive-By Truckers

  6. I’m a libertarian, apparently. Who’da thunk?

    And Mikey, none other than that right wing talk radio hatemonger Thomas Jefferson said:

    “When the people are afraid of the government it is tyranny. When the government is afraid of the people it is liberty.”

    Say what you will about the tea parties, but methinks they are scaring those soulless, power-crazed bastards back to the stone age. A good thing, if you ask me.

  7. “Say what you will about the tea parties, but methinks they are scaring those soulless, power-crazed bastards back to the stone age. A good thing, if you ask me.”

    Dave, are you saying that the force of your (tyrannized) fear and ignorance is somehow frightening the federal government, and you feel fulfilled (liberated)? Jesus, you’re an idiot.

  8. What was going on in 1939 in Europe? It was a setup. Just look at our own Iraq war and how the media pretty much had the war started before it had begun. These wars are all lies upon lies upon lies. Who funded all this war in the past 100 years?

    Mikey will take fascism, Mikey will take anything. Look, he likes it. Hey Mikey!

  9. The media just fan the flames of whatever the latest hook is, like cheap street vendors trying to hock whatever latest trend is.
    They didn’t come up with the plan and didn’t pull the trigger for Iraq. Did they blow the bugle the whole way in? Maybe. probably. Whatever got the best ratings I suspect in most cases.

    1939 — Explain the “setup” theory? I don’t get it. who exactly was set up?

    Wars are indeed lies. Not black and white anymore, gotta be “sold” like a shitty used car since public opinion matters, at least to some degree. That alone may be a sign the government fears the people. Fears us seeing the truth and therefore have to conjure up some smoke and mirrors, maybe a good old fashioned common cause to unite against. Tyranny is usually a good one.
    I think it is also a sign those in power have a good idea how to manipulate the commoners, get them riled up, pump up the emotions so rationale judgement goes out the window in a stream of hate fueled rhetoric.

    So, who did fund all the wars in the last 100 years? Is that a trick question?

    My guess is Satan.

  10. “Mikey will take fascism, Mikey will take anything. Look, he likes it. Hey Mikey!”

    schulz—

    Fascism is your term, not mine. I see no fascists in power anywhere in the developed world. Yeesh, don’t be a moron.

    The United States is the greatest nation on earth and has the best system of government on earth. Nothing is fucked, dude. The system works.

    Unless you get really sick, then chances are, some mega-billion dollar insurance company is going to fuck you in the ass.

  11. Europe was divided on purpose, just like we are. The fiat money printers have had the whole world in an uproar for approximately 100 years. Behind the curtains the ultra-rich and mega corporations are trading the wealth of the world.

    Everyone was set up. How come Germany had a brand new war machine? IBM and Standard Oil helped quite a bit. Oh, but you wouldn’t want to believe that.

    I agree that the US rocks. Patton could have easily liberated Eastern Europe. He was not only stopped from doing it, but I believe he was killed in that “accident” because he was going to go in anyway. He knew that the people of Eastern Europe were going to be fucked if he stopped where he was told.

    Idiot otherwise known as Mikey, we would not be having this discussion if the system here worked as well as you imply. We have become fascist, look at our role in the world. Even your attitude is that of a fascist, you and your friends here are authoritative and intolerant. All you want to do is deny everything except that the insurance companies are corrupt. All you and people like you do is spout out the one liners that you’ve been brainwashed to think are true.

    If the system worked six or so companies wouldn’t be responsible for the flow of information to the people. If the system worked, small banks like yours would be thriving. If the system worked the number of bicycles and bicycle components made in the US would not be a fringe industry. If the system worked like the fairy tale world you think we live in nobody would have a reason to come up with any of this shit.

  12. Anyone who thinks ‘America is the best country in the world’ has either never owned a passport, or learned little from using it.