Anonymity

Anonymity is the condition of being unknown, without a name or lacking an identity.

The problem of anonymity is a particular interesting and dynamic one in the online context, especially in the broad set of contexts, media, software, websites, and venues identified as Web 2.0. Particularly when encountering existing or created web pages, the anonymous reader, known only to herself, frequently encounters an equally anonymous author Pseudonyms, or fabricated names, whether or not the fabrication is obvious, are a common online phenomenon. Sometimes pneumonic devices may used, whether or not they have meaning to the creator. Thus Betty Rice, who only a few close friends know plays in a bell choir, for example, may seek to retain her online anonymity with the pseudonym Bell Ringer.

The condition of being anonymous seldom appears among lists of key concepts in social science theories but is nonetheless related in complex ways to several important social and political ideas: It shares a first syllable (and common Greek origin) with anomie, for example, and is theoretically related as well to anarchy; the concern being that persons nameless or unknown may constitute threats to social order or moral order. Perhaps most important of all, the condition of anonymity is closely linked to the social psychological concept of personal identity.

Philosophically, important issues revolve around the question of the nature of existence of that which lacks a name or is fully unknown.