Facebook might experiment with anonymity

Seems like an odd philosophical choice, but as a publicly-traded company, it might be a practical business decision.

Randi Zuckerberg said back in July 2011 when she worked at Facebook:

I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away.

People behave a lot better when they have their real names down.

... I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.

Her claim about people behaving better online when they use their real names is obviously false.

May 2012 Businessweek story

Every Zuckerberg hack is in the service of an overarching vision: that technology and online authenticity can bring people together. And the easier it is for people to find one another, the more time they’ll spend online, sharing photos of their kids, their moods, what they read, who they date, and on and on with all the people they have met in their life (or, if they neglect their privacy settings, with the whole world).

Zuckerberg sought to build a youthful company that could understand and embrace future technological waves as well as bypass generational resistance over sharing and privacy. He believed that Internet users would eventually be less guarded in the way they used the new social services that were popping up online

The openness and lack of privacy viewpoints may have changed for some young people. And quickly too. Maybe that's the reason why Facebook is now looking at supporting anonymity in some fashion.

2010 story

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December.

Mark Zuckerberg has always embraced the idea of real identities and openness.

April 2014 - Facebook Explores Anonymity Features