In July 2015, panic reigned among the extramaritally active when hackers grabbed millions of profiles from Ashley Madison. Some of them are doubtless panicking again today, after a judge ruled that they can’t be anonymous in a class action suit against the cheating website.
Spend much time in any corner of the Internet where strangers don't exchange names, and you'll start seeing some dark shit. People will confess all sorts of things under the cover of anonymity—abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts. And one app is attempting to do its part.
Anyone who's ever been a #teen surely remembers those days of door-slamming and loudly asserted rights to privacy. But social media has opened up a whole new front in the endless adolescent war for space to brood. Cue the flourishing of anonymous messaging apps!
One writer says online dating sites are limiting their own growth by letting people pick usernames, rather than tapping into their real-life social networks. But would people really date online if they had to use their real names?
The TeleEroticist, who was wittily live-tweeting her work as a phone sex operator under a pseudonym, has been forced to identify herself as Christi Olson. Why? Because some jealous dude threatened to out her to her family.
A governmental plan to grant accused rapists anonymity has been dropped after protests from female MPs, who argued that the proposed law—which only applied to rape cases—would essentially paint victims, particularly women, as probable liars. [Guardian]
Candice Dinsdale, now 44, was just six when she was first sexually abused by her father Anthony Allen. Now she's gone public. But should that be so unusual?
