There are good reasons to be anonymous online. And yet most people assume that anonymity is just a license to be a jerk. The fact is that some people will be jerks online whether they’re anonymous or not.

Sadly, some less-well-informed people have decided that anonymity is somehow the root of all evil on the net, and think that forcing people to use their real names online will magically make everyone nice. This kind of thinking has even pervaded some very high profile companies, including Google and Facebook, both of which have pushed hard to make people use their real names.

Anonymity is a frequent topic of discussion over at Techdirt, where the comments section is open to the public and allows anonymity. Because the Techdirt staff actually engage with commenters (jerks and otherwise), the debate rarely gets out of hand, and some of the most interesting comments are posted by anonymous users.