Identity and Anonymity in the Digital Age

The importance of anonymity in a functioning society is summarized well in the following quote from Justice John Paul Stevens from 1995:

"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation—and their ideas from suppression—at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse."

The question of anonymity is relevant today as social network providers struggle over the perceived tradeoff between anonymity and self-expression on the one hand and accountability on the other hand. For example, Google Plus has received some attention over their naming policy which includes the provision that your Common Name should be "the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you."

There has been some great commentary regarding the restrictive nature of this kind of policy (see for example this piece from the Electronic Frontier Foundation), and I certainly agree that these arguments regarding privacy and security alone are convincing. However, an additional argument can be made with respect to the transcendent nature of identity in the age of social networks. In particular, the consideration of the kinds of abuse that Google and others are attempting to mitigate.

A primary concern for Google and others is the proliferation of spam that comes along with allowing anonymous interaction. This is well known. However, the requirement that accounts be directly tied to real-world identities seems to be a fairly blunt reaction. Historically the use of pseudonyms in digital interaction has been the source of rich dialog. Is it possible to prevent this kind of abuse without taking such drastic action? A digital identity separate from a real-world identity can over time take on many of the responsibilities normally associated with a real-world identity that can hinder the kinds of abuse considered here. Is it possible for Google and others to create a privacy policy that can tap into this, thus allowing for separate digital identities?