Véliz Carissa
Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, Faculty of Philosophy Christ Church University of Oxford Oxford OX11PT.
J Appl Philos. 2019 Aug;36(4):643-658. doi: 10.1111/japp.12342. Epub 2018 Sep 12.
Anonymity promotes free speech by protecting the identity of people who might otherwise face negative consequences for expressing their ideas. Wrongdoers, however, often abuse this invisibility cloak. Defenders of anonymity online emphasise its value in advancing public debate and safeguarding political dissension. Critics emphasise the need for identifiability in order to achieve accountability for wrongdoers such as trolls. The problematic tension between anonymity and identifiability online lies in the desirability of having low costs (no repercussions) for desirable speech and high costs (appropriate repercussions) for undesirable speech. If we practice either full anonymity or identifiability, we end up having either low or high costs in all online contexts and for all kinds of speech. I argue that free speech is compatible with instituting costs in the form of repercussions and penalties for controversial and unacceptable speech. Costs can minimise the risks of anonymity by providing a reasonable degree of accountability. Pseudonymity is a tool that can help us regulate those costs while furthering free speech. This article argues that, in order to redesign the Internet to better serve free speech, we should shape much of it to resemble an online masquerade.
匿名性通过保护那些否则可能因表达自己的想法而面临负面后果的人的身份来促进言论自由。然而，作恶者经常滥用这种隐身衣。网络匿名性的捍卫者强调其在推进公共辩论和保护政治异见方面的价值。批评者则强调为了实现对喷子等作恶者的问责，可识别性的必要性。在线匿名性和可识别性之间的问题性紧张关系在于，对于合意的言论希望成本低廉（没有后果），而对于不合意的言论则希望成本高昂（适当的后果）。如果我们实行完全匿名或可识别性，我们最终会在所有在线环境中以及对于所有类型的言论都产生要么低廉要么高昂的成本。我认为，言论自由与对有争议和不可接受的言论施加以后果和处罚形式的成本是相容的。成本可以通过提供合理程度的问责来将匿名性的风险降至最低。笔名是一种工具，可以帮助我们在促进言论自由的同时调节这些成本。本文认为，为了重新设计互联网以更好地服务于言论自由，我们应该使互联网的大部分内容类似于一场在线假面舞会。
