The Technology and Ethics of Anonymous Posting on Social Media

Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit enable various degrees of pseudonymity by allowing people to create accounts unconnected to their real identity. However, most major platforms still require users to link accounts to a single, consistent identity to enable accountability.

But what if you want to post completely anonymously – without even a persistent pseudonym attached? Why might someone need that level of untraceability, and are there ethical risks?

In this comprehensive technology guide, we’ll analyze the infrastructure enabling anonymous posting on Facebook and compare it to other platforms. We’ll also study usage statistics, policy considerations, controversies and emerging research to determine if and when this capability should exist online.

How Anonymous Posting Works on Facebook

Facebook rolled out an Anonymous Posting feature to Groups in 2019 allowing admins to configure whether members can make posts unattributed to any account identity.

Here’s an overview of how this functionally works:

1. Client apps on user devices interface with Facebook’s public API to load group content and post updates.
2. Apps detect via API if Anonymous Posting mode enabled for group.
3. User sees option to toggle “Post Anonymously” when composing a post.
4. With anonymization enabled, apps omit identity tokens from update request sent to API.
5. Facebook servers process updates, storing anonymous ones under special Internal Attribution records.
6. Group content server clusters attach “Anonymous” label and system avatar to anonymous posts before rendering pages.

So in essence, client apps selectively withhold attribution details that the backend content infrastructure expects by default. Facebook uses special placeholder credential records to satisfy foreign key requirements in databases tracking content ownership and authorization.

Therefore, anonymous posts originate from real user accounts, but apps decline to disclose this linkage at time of submission when the anonymous option enabled.

While anonymous externally, within Facebook‘s vast data halls, profiles of actual poster identities still remain mapped and traceable by system administrators. So complete anonymity involves trusting Facebook‘s internal access controls and governance not to violate that visibility barrier.

Now let‘s compare this confidentiality approach to other platforms.

Anonymous Posting Techniques on Other Platforms

Other major social networks take different approaches to identity and anonymity. For example:

YouTube – Ties all content to Google accounts but allows custom channel branding. Comments can be posted anonymously but require moderation.
Twitter – Permits fully pseudonymous profiles unconnected to real identities but requires consistent persona.
Reddit – Allows throwaway accounts and subreddits like /r/confessions with temporary identities.

Here is how various platforms handle anonymization based on their policies and content architectures:

The above shows Facebook uniquely focusing anonymity to group contexts rather than site-wide. Next we‘ll study statistics around adoption of this capability.

Anonymous Posting Usage Statistics

In the first year after launch, over 100,000 Facebook groups enabled the anonymous posting feature. Exact percentages for public/private and active/inactive groups remains undisclosed.

However, in an interview at the time, Facebook’s Product Manager quoted:

“We have seen many group admins and members embrace anonymous posting as a way to support more open and authentic conversations."

They declined to share quantitative usage data though, making the volume of actual anonymous contributions unclear.

Separately, a Pew Research study on online harassment showed 15% of adult social media users in the US have used anonymity tools at some point to manage privacy. But adoption on Facebook specifically remains opaque.

Therefore while many groups technically permit anonymous posting, the proportion of content actually contributed anonymously seems marginal based on the limited data available.

This also makes evaluating downstream impacts like harassment rates or misinformation spread difficult:

“The impacts of online anonymity features remain tricky to gauge due to the lack of clear usage signals built into platforms like Facebook,” notes Dr. Alicia Smith, Professor of Digital Ethics at the University of Michigan. “Self-reported studies suffer from selection bias, while tech companies closely guard raw engagement analytics that could better quantify benefits versus harms.”

Nonetheless, Facebook has kept the capability active indicating the positives are outweighing negatives so far. But this assessment relies greatly on content moderation.

The Role of AI Content Moderation

To mitigate illicit use of anonymity, Facebook applies the same artificial intelligence and human review used for all posts:

This encompasses both automated flagging models and moderator queues prior to public visibility:

• NLP Bot Detection – Analyzes linguistic signals correlated with bot generated text
• Offensive Language Classifiers – Detects potential harassment and cyberbullying keywords
• Image Tagging Models – Identifies pornography, graphic violence, illegal goods, etc.
• Objectionable Content Review – Human moderators adjudicate boundary cases

According to Facebook policy experts:

“The same Community Standards and content policies apply equally to all posts regardless of poster anonymity. Automated and human moderation works as robustly to detect policy violations from anonymous contributors without the need for attribution details.”

This allows reaping benefits of anonymity like openness around sensitive topics without increasing avenues for exploitation. Where anonymity becomes more concerning is at larger scale across multiple platforms popularly regarded as public squares.

Industry Self-Regulation Of Online Anonymity

Most major social networks now forbid anonymity to promote accountable speech and prevent impersonation. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook argue consistency between online persona to real world self is crucial for trust.

Critics however counter that anonymity protects vulnerable groups and enables whistleblowing against the powerful. Restricting technology likewise restricts liberty and access to remedies.

"Anonymity can empower the speech of marginalized groups by allowing them to speak without fear of retribution’" argues Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Kurt Opsahl. "The option for anonymous speech should thus be maintained as an avenue for those facing hostility, rather than as an escape hatch for trolls.”

In response, Senator Mark Warner has spearheaded policy initiatives around regulating anonymity:

“Online anonymity has its place, but attributed viral posts carry more weight in public discourse. Identification encourages quality control.”

But the Senator acknowledges the role legislation plays remains complex:

"Requirements around identity must balance promoting accountability without enabling harassment against private individuals. Platforms themselves still bear greatest responsibility for community oversight."

While industry dialogue continues evolving around these tradeoffs, colleges have already intervened against anonymity locally.

Anonymous Social Apps On College Campuses

Many universities have banned mobile apps like YikYak and After School that allowed students to make anonymous localized posts. Administrators argued the lack of accountability resulted in rampant hate speech, threats, bullying and other conduct violations.

Stanford University specifically called out the inability to pursue disciplinary charges around anonymous acts in justifying restrictions. Although bans proved controversial as infringing speech rights, numerous student petitions justified prioritizing campus safety.

The severity of issues faced by academic institutions highlights how injection of anonymity into close-knit communities carries heightened risks without sufficient oversight. For broader social networks however, the sheer scale makes anonymity‘s impacts more diluted but also harder to quantify.

Nonetheless, a few case studies of high profile anonymous incidents illustrate worst practices and consequences. Both online anonymity generally and Facebook‘s Group feature specifically still remain hotly debated amongst tech ethics experts.

Prominent Controversies Around Anonymous Posts

Here are some illustrative examples of infamous instances where anonymity became a conduit for harmful behavior rather than the empowering free speech channel as originally envisioned:

High School Cyberbullying

In 2010, anonymous posts bullying a high school student on Formspring resulted in the youth‘s suicide. This tragedy spotlighted the platform’s lack of protections around juvenile anonymized content. It eventually led to Formspring getting acquired and closed down.

Celebrity Imposter Accounts

Fake anonymous accounts on Twitter impersonating celebrities almost caused an international scandal by spreading inflammatory political lies prior to the 2016 US elections. The inability to tie posts to legitimate identities created massive cascading disinformation.

Toxic Reddit Communities

On Reddit, the anonymous nature of certain subreddits made it impossible to track and ban individual bad actors. Only by eventually shutting down entire communities like FatPeopleHate was the site able to curb organized harassment anonymously coordinated on the platform.

The above examples demonstrate how granting users the power of anonymity absent other mitigating checks and balances fails to prevent misconduct. This generates valuable lessons around policies and governance for platforms like Facebook.

Expert Guidance on Ethical Usage

Drawing on the above insights from research and case studies, academics and policy experts emphasize considering context in applying anonymity features.

Professor Susan Benesch, founder of the Dangerous Speech Project, summarizes guidance as follows:

"Anonymity on its own is neutral – it‘s both speech enhancing and disinhibiting. But combined with other factors like isolation and encrypted private channels, it becomes dangerous by enabling deception and deterring accountability."

Incorporating these insights, Benesch suggests implementing anonymity features under the following constraints as proactive safety measures:

• Visibility – Content should be visible to a wider public rather than narrow invisible audiences
• Authentication – Anonymous posters must still login via secure mechanisms like hardware keys tying sessions to a single account
• Determination – Platforms must maintain ability to uncover true identities if necessary for auditing

Furthermore, Facebook’s former Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos recommends layering anonymity with other trust and safety practices:

“For pseudonymity systems to avoid abuse, they need revocation, review and redemption processes built in as core affordances.”

This means tying contributions to reputation scores, assessing speech risks continuously, and allowing earn-back of posting rights upon reforms rather than indefinite bans.

Applying these layered defenses enables realizing benefits of anonymity like free expression without the worst harms like misinformation, scams and extremism.

Takeaways – The Nuances Around Online Anonymity

Hopefully the surveys of technology, precedent and doctrine covered here provide a balanced perspective on the merits and risks of enabling anonymous posting online.

Key insights to retain include:

Benefits

• Anonymity facilitates free expression on sensitive topics
• It allows vulnerable groups to participate without fear of discrimination
• Features like anonymous user feedback provide platforms valuable inputs to improve

Tradeoffs

• Anonymized platforms breeding antisocial behavior get shuttered losing any value they provide
• Malicious anonymous actors face no consequences undermining overall integrity
• Impersonation and catfishing destroy trust between legitimate participants

Recommendations

• Guide visibility and behavior via reputation scores attached to anonymous personas
• Use privacy-preserving identity verification techniques like hardware tokens
• Correlate multiple anonymous touch points back to source to enable accountability

In essence, anonymity cannot subsist in the absence of governance. Ensuring technologies like Facebook’s Anonymous Posting feature bring more benefit than harm rests heavily upon human oversight and content policies.

Those skeptical of such self-regulation argue legal standards around online anonymity are required. But laws also carry risk of overreach. In these early days, technical stewardship may still be our most prudent path.

Building ethics into systems via content and interaction modeling, default configurations encouraging dignity, and judicious human moderation likely represents the ideal middle road. With conscientious design and community support, anonymous posting can facilitate empowerment without endangering users.