Rethinking anonymity

The Centre wants to make identity verification mandatory online. This may not be advisable

When the Centre rebutted Twitter’s lawsuit against its orders to block users, it made a curious claim: “There is no fundamental right of anonymity under Part III of the Constitution. The only right guaranteed is the right to remain silent”. The position was stated to the Karnataka high court. The two sides are locked in a battle over social media takedowns. Specifically, the government wants some users blocked for illegal speech, while Twitter has said account-level restrictions (as opposed to taking down specific posts) were too sweeping and violated users’ fundamental rights, including that of freedom of speech. The stance brings into the spotlight a question that India is beginning to confront: Should anonymity be allowed online? The debate stems from attempts to contain illegal online speech, such as misinformation, fake news, and abuse. One solution, the opponents of online anonymity argue, is to make identity verification mandatory. This stance is not entirely meritless: Anonymity affords bad faith actors the impunity to, say, spread misinformation or troll women. One of the most prolific misinformation actors of today is an entity named Q, who built the internet cult Q Anon. But this specific example is more of an outlier.

In reality, anonymity and pseudonymity have been a crucial tool for inclusivity.  (Shutterstock)

In reality, anonymity and pseudonymity have been a crucial tool for inclusivity. In 2020, the United Kingdom government, after being urged to make identity verification online mandatory, said such an obligation would restrict the freedom of expression. “…it would disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, such as people from marginalised communities, women, transgender individuals, activists — the list goes on,” it said. Eight years before that, a court in South Korea struck down the country’s mandatory ID verification for internet services, noting that anonymity allows “people to overcome the economic or political hierarchy off-line and therefore to form public opinions free from class, social status, age, and gender distinctions”.

Civil liberty activists and social media executives stress that the question of anonymity needs to be seen from a cost-benefit perspective: The benefit of allowing marginalised social, political and economic minorities to express anonymously and thus, freely and without the fear of reprisal, far outweighs the cost of leaving space for hate-mongering trolls, for whom there are other enforcement avenues. Anonymity, therefore, can be seen as a crucial tool to allow all citizens to express freely, which is a fundamental right. In some ways, its journey is akin to that of privacy, which too was not an explicit right till the Supreme Court made it so five years ago.