Flaming hell

Online anonymity: defensible if you're a dissident in China, say, or a determined whistleblower within an organisation, or even if you're just keen to write about and explore private matters publicly. But, according to Tim Adams, not if you're intent on mischief-making (or worse) as a troll.

Adams isn't the only person to have commented on the way anonymity seems to be increasingly used as a protective shield for all the wrong reasons. I recently came across an article by cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew, for instance, complaining about what he calls the "keyboard bravado" of vindictive Twitter followers, to which he and his tweets have fallen victim.

In my time as a blogger, either here or there, I've never experienced a genuine troll infestation, though there has certainly been the odd disgruntled music fan or musician reacting to a bad gig review here, or opposition supporter rising to the bait over there. But I sympathise with the point made by both Adams and Agnew. It might seem suspect to vet comments before they're posted on either site, but personally I don't think there's anything wrong with having a policy of deleting abusive messages which have been left anonymously. If you're going to be critical and/or offensive, then at least have the courage and decency to put your name to it - I put my name to everything I write, and while it's not my full name (so there's a measure of identity concealment), it wouldn't exactly be hard to find out who's behind the posts if you wanted to.