IGF 2019 WS #392
Are anonymous forums leading us to a less tolerant society?

Relevance to Theme: While Safety and Resilience often refer to technical aspects of the network, we can also apply it to the physical safety of users and their psychological resilience, as stated in the Theme's description. This workshop aims at exploring this exact point, in the specific context of online anonymous forums and their possible relation with violent radicalization, harmful speech, political extremism and echo chambers.
As an inciting incident, linking those forums to unlawful acts, we can pick the recent New Zealand Christchurch shooting, which so far has been related to a specific online anonymous image board (8chan) in which the shooter announced his manifesto and gave out the link for the shooting's livestream. As of the writing of this document there are 49 dead, painting a bleak picture of how online extremism can lead to a loss of life.
We don't need, however, to exclusively look at violent crimes. Those anonymous image boards can be studied for their extreme content on its own, as well from how they are a means to fully realize freedom of expression for those who would be harmed for their opinions. In this sense, anonymity when coupled with freedom of expression seems to be a two edged sword; it can save the life of the dissident who would be persecuted for his beliefs, as it can cultivate an environment of non-accountability for one's harmful content.
We can trace comparisons between anonymity in this area with how it can play out in the WHOIS system. While in Europe WHOIS anonymity is seen as a matter of privacy, in undeveloped countries an activist's identity can be revealed with a simple online search which can lead to both social and physical harm.
The subject of how those image boards lead to radicalization and violence is made imperative in spaces like the IGF, where the matter can be appreciated under many perspectives. In this proposal so far we've focused on how it impacts the users' security and resilience, but there are direct implications to the Web's Resilience as well -- in response to the Christchurch shooting, New Zealand authorities responded by blocking two anonymous image boards (4chan and 8chan), a video-sharing site (Liveleak) and went on to ban possession of the shooting's video under Possession of Objectionable Material, with a possible jail time of 10 years.
In this sense, we can state this workshop's connection to the Theme of Security, Safety, Stability and Resilience is twofold; mainly it relates to the users' integrity, and secondarily to how countries can respond to threats relating to anonymous forums in ways that do not harm Internet's integrity.

Relevance to Internet Governance: In enjoying the right to freedom of speech, anonymity can be an important shield in defending individuals who, holding on to unpopular opinions, would be harmed by an intolerant majority. It can help ethnic and religious minorities who would have their integrity harmed by totalitarian governments or paramilitary groups. Similarly it can protect those who hold on to unpopular, but otherwise harmless, political opinions, or who identify with, for example, sexual minorities with whom association would cause damage to one's career. In all those circumstances, anonymity comes up as a facilitator to the full realization of one's freedom of speech.
Notwithstanding, anonymous forums are, in a way, conducive to the new wave of privacy protecting regulations worldwide, in the sense that they ultimately abdicate on the requirement of offering any data before gaining access to it.
Simultaneously, anonymity can instill a wide array of harmful behaviors, both to individuals and to the world at large. By often instilling a sentiment that one's actions cannot be traced back, it can be a breeding ground for harmful speech and extremism, which can lead to anonymous communities gradually turning into echo chambers and catalysts for further radicalization.
This phenomena has implications for all of Internet Governance's stakeholder groups. The use of anonymity as a catalyst for freedom of speech and hate speech is a matter of pertinence to civil society, who has a stake on both sides.
Bringing the issue to the discussion of elections, the popularity which Donald Trump achieved among anonymous forum users is considered an important factor for his victory, and anonymity is a conducive tool for the dissemination of fake news both by interested individuals and hired actors. When coupled with those environments' potential to radicalize, such as what has been observed in the recent Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, which has been associated with an anonymous forum, it becomes an urgent matter. Austria has announced they want to enforce identification for Austrian internet users in large platforms, as an attempt to curb hate speech. Suffice it to say that governments, too, have a stake in this debate.
The private sector also has a stake in this matter. Microsoft's TayAI initiative was derailed by an effort originating from an anonymous forum, which consisted in feeding the AI's algorithm with hateful speech. Those forums' tendency towards disruption can be an issue. Those websites are, however, ultimately platforms like any other; would an attempt at regulating them affect other social media businesses? This questioning by itself warrants bringing the private sector to the table, as ultimately it is also a question which can impact other platforms.
When it comes to the technical community, anonymous forums are an environment whose principles hark back, at times, to a cyberoptimistic perspective, to the shedding of national identities, which by itself can be an attractive to technical communities which would prefer to keep its members' identities unknown.
This discussion is particularly appropriate for the IGF as it benefits greatly from a global perspective. The very definition of hate speech is country-dependant, and even an approach based around harmful speech is heavily dependant on cultural differences. When applied beyond the initial issue of freedom of speech, we can assess its implications both on democracies, in how those forums can act as breeding grounds for malicious efforts, and in the safety of people who might be victimized by radical actors instilled by anonymous echo chambers.
In this context, anonymous forums come up as an uniquely relevant type of platform, in that their specificities bring about a mix of old and new issues, given new relevance.