Anonymity on the Internet and on YouTube
Anonymity, in any context, is a tool for protecting oneself. Any number of legitimate reasons to do exists, but on the internet, anonymity is notorious for the abuse of its inherent protection, shifting that protection towards protection against the consequences of hate speech and vitriol. Among the internet’s many platforms, while in general they vary in the range of degrees of anonymity they potentially facilitate, YouTube in particular runs practically the whole gamut in terms of how much it lets users remain anonymous or identify themselves. Options for user names are open enough to include anything from a person’s real name to an online alias completely untraceable to whomever it belongs to. A user may likewise select as their profile picture anything from an actual still photo of them to pixel art of the moon.
The inherent difference between intercourse through videos and intercourse though the text-based comments sections complicates the effects of anonymity on YouTube. This video-comment format enables dynamics where the creator of the video “puts themself out there” while anyone commenting can safely hide behind a wall of anonymity. Such dynamics not only enable verbal abuse without fear of identification and repercussion on the part of the commenters, but they also provide a the ideal forum for a group of comments to gang up on a single content creator. While content creators may have access to techniques that hide their identity to reap the protection of anonymity, doing so affects the content of their video and thus how viewers are likely respond to it. Commenters have access to much more efficient tools for achieving anonymity, simply leaving behind a block of text, and have far lower risk in doing so. While either content creators or commenters can make use of anonymity towards either positive or negative ends, the platform enables the abuse of anonymity particularly from commenters towards content creators. While YouTube does provide content creators with the option to turn off comments--or ratings--on any of their videos, it is not a perfect solution. While turning off comments helps protect those content creators who deem it necessary, some may see it as a last resort, whereas YouTube provides no middle ground.
The impetus is on YouTube to work on and implement solutions to help mitigate the abuse of anonymity in its comments sections, even if eliminating abuse altogether may prove impossible. And YouTube has, in the past, made attempts. In 2013, when YouTube integrated itself with Google+, it became more difficult for users--specifically while commenting--to be able to maintain their YouTube alias without creating an additional Google+ account. While this did mitigate the problem to some degree, it created enough difficulty and confusion overall for YouTube users that YouTube eventually decided to restore simple options for anonymity. And with it came the return of the original problems of the YouTube comments sections. Attacking the problem at its core did not work, perhaps because anonymity still has positive uses even on the level of comments, but perhaps more so because YouTube users--people--are resistant to change. This creates another challenge YouTube has to tiptoe around in solving the problem. But ultimately, as far as the platform not only allows but enables abusive and vitriolic comments, YouTube has a responsibility to work on mitigating these issues as much as possible.