Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk address suggestions regarding anonymity on Twitter

• Jack Dorsey is the co-founder of Twitter. Musk bought Twitter this year.
• There are millions of anonymous profiles on Twitter.
• Some people want less anonymity on the micro-blogging platform.

Jordan B Peterson wants Musk to get rid of anonymous accounts on Twitter

Clinical Psychologist and popular YouTube personality Jordan B Peterson wants less anonymity on Twitter. Former CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey believes doing that is not a good idea. While few people supported Peterson’s suggestion, several who opposed it, had strong arguments.

Last Friday, Peterson tweeted to Musk: “Don’t allow the anonymous troll-demons to post with the real verified people. Put them in their own hell, along with others like them: LOL LULZ BRO BRUH hyper-users are narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic and sadistic…”

There  are millions of Twitter users who have pseudonymous profiles. It is not compulsory to reveal one’s identity via the username or even the user handle. On Twitter, spam accounts are essentially anonymous accounts.

Peterson was tweeting in response to Musk’s tweet revealing features of Twitter’s new policy regarding hate spewing accounts – hate speech accounts will be deboosted and demonetised which would strip Twitter of its revenue from those accounts.

In the tweet that the psychologist responded to, Musk said that “New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”

“You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.” Musk concluded.

Several people opposed Peterson’s suggestion including Jack Dorsey. Dorsey tweeted that it would be a bad idea. Notaly, several people – with anonymous and non-anonymous accounts – argued that anonymity helped many people tweet freely who wouldn’t be able to tweet with accounts that disclosed their identity. Examples of salaried common people, single women, among others poured in against his tweet.

Musk replied to Dorsey: ”Verification through the payment system plus phones, but allowing pseudonyms is the least bad solution I can think of”

Bitcoin whale and the executive chairman of Microstrategy, Michael Saylor, noted that dealing with bad actors was the real challenge and not anonymous accounts per se:

“The problem isn’t the anonymity, it is the lack of meaningful consequences in the event of malicious behavior. If Twitter requires verified accounts to post a security deposit and forfeit those funds for malicious/bot/spam behavior, we can have civil discourse & respect privacy.”

One user explained that people chose to be anonymous because of the same reason Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonym of the anonymous creator of Blockchain and Bitcoin.)

Notably, Jordan Peterson’s account was suspended by Twitter management – before Musk bought the site –  for offensive comments on a trans-gender actor. Musk has reinstated several accounts including Peterson’s and former president Donald Trump’s account.

Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.

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