Blizzard to remove the veil of anonymity

You know, I just thought of this...

I knew people who worked in a police task force on online sexual predators, and a few of their officers posed as 13 year olds kids on World of Warcraft and other games trying to catch potential child molesters.

I wonder how many law enforcement activities are going to be disrupted because of this. They kinda need the anonymity also to hunt down these predators.

(P.S. No, I'm not saying which agency or department these people worked for or if they play CoH also)

Even after all the furor over this...I don't think Blizzard is going to back down. It's likely that the deals have largely been signed and delivered already with whomever they're collaborating with (in this case, it seems Facebook, the South Korean government), and they see themselves as enough of a juggernaut to survive people leaving.

And let's be honest...with as many players as they have, it'd have to be a mass exodus to really hurt them at this point.


S.

So, this subject. Honestly, I was debating whether to weigh in at all, just because I was wondering if the thread would even be here in a day. Since its still here, I guess that's a sign.

I'd say I'm an internet veteran: I've been active in some part of the internet/usenet since 1985. I've participated and still participate both with my real life identity and anonymously. My perspective on this has changed radically back and forth over the years, but the bottom line for me is that I believe revealing personal details about yourself, and which ones to reveal, is an entirely personal choice. I say quite a lot, actually, but I still do so anonymously. My reasons are entirely personal and entirely my own, and I don't think there's any particular need to justify them. Whether I'm afraid of being stalked by a forum loon or I just want to partition different parts of my life for no particular reason is entirely my choice.

There are many internet forums (and I use that word generically) where anonymity is impractical or forbidden. When I participate in those, its voluntarily and after careful consideration. And if I choose not to, I choose not to. If, on the other hand, I choose to participate in an arena that offers anonymity, I expect that anonymity to be preserved. It really doesn't matter if, say, Kali is right and anonymity is a mandatory safety barrier or if Venture is right and anonymity is a statistically irrelevant attribute. Even if either position was possible to prove absolutely true it would have no bearing on my feelings towards anonymity. Its something I choose for my own reasons, and I expect those reasons to be honored.

I can't directly comment on the specific reasons, both acknowledged and speculated, for what might be motivating Blizzard. And I see that at least in terms of forum participation this policy will not have retroactive effects, which means for the most part its voluntary. However, and I'm not very familiar with all of the details, since I'm no longer a WoW participant, but if there are indeed non-optional aspects of this policy, and particularly if this were to have leaked my identity without my expressed permission, I would be gravely upset. I don't use that term lightly. I can relate completely with the Blizzard customers incredibly upset over this change, and they have every right to be.

Bottom line: if NCSoft were to be so brain-dead as to institute this policy here, I'd be gone. The only question would be whether I would set fire to the place on the way out the door, statistics be damned.


PS: on the subject of internet trolling and flame wars. As some have mentioned, back in the day virtually everyone on the internet was not anonymous. So much so that anyone active regularly on USENET was bound to be a "known" entity by a significant percentage of the people who participated in those forums. We, the collective we, knew each other. While that had a moderating influence on the *number* and *threshold* of flame wars and verbal assaults, once that threshold was breached there is almost *nothing* today that compares to the flame wars of the past, simply because we knew our targets far better than most do today. Today, flames are generic, random, hand-flailing cries for attention. Back then, flames were laser guided bombs aimed at people's pets, sexual preference, uncertain lineage, favorite mode of transportation, hair style, questionable acquaintances, and career trajectories. Anonymity didn't increase flaming on the internet, it just standardized it. And I don't think you can turn the clock back: now that internet abuse is considered a social norm, removing the veil of anonymity won't reduce abuse, it will just personalize it, but without the moderating peer pressure we used to have in the past to at least be a little selective about your public battles.

I know you're trying to say it doesn't matter if Venture or I is correct for access to anonymity to be necessary, but I should point out that what Venture is arguing is pretty grotesque in a civilized society and that increasing potential danger for some people is only a sacrifice he's willing to make because he's not one of the people who may be in danger. But it's okay for other people to be in danger because he doesn't think there will be that many, even though fewer will be in danger without such a policy in place. On a purely humanitarian level, there's no justifying his argument.

I agree that there should be no justification necessary, but an enforced lack of anonymity on the WoW forums will drive people away, there's no arguing that, and of course there's no justifiable reason for Blizzard to do this.

So is this the mythical WoW-killer? I always thought that it'd come from another company, and not Blizzard
I think Bioware wil be quite happy with this situation right now

Two links so far on the Fark.com Geek page.

This comment cracked me up:

Interesting to see how this will turn out.

For the record, Venture, you're wrong. Again.

Have a nice day.

(So glad I stopped playing that idiot mmo over a year ago. )