Anonymity has always been a vital part of political and social commentary, and it has flourished with the expansion of the Internet.
As the Internet moves from living in our computers to inside our pockets, anonymity has become that much more common. This is generally a positive thing, as anonymity is an essential part of the First Amendment guarantees of free speech.
But anonymity does have the tendency to bring out the worst in us from time to time, and those times become more frequent as the Internet becomes more omnipresent.
Yik Yak, an incredibly popular social media tool which acts as an anonymous Twitter, highlights the positives and negatives of anonymity. While Yik Yak enables users to openly share ideas and criticisms, it also opens the door to cruelty behind the defense of a keyboard.
Yik Yak has the ability to be incredibly funny, off-color and sometimes thought provoking. But more times than not, Yakkers use the anonymity features of Yik Yak to be cruel, demeaning and racist.
I believe anonymity to be incredibly important, but as with most important values, it comes with a high threshold of responsibility.
There are times when being anonymous is incredibly important to the virtue of freedom of thought and speech. But more often than not, anonymity is used as an excuse to devalue the opinions of others, which devalues the entire public forum of the Internet.
The idea of an open, public forum for citizens to express their opinions lies in the bedrock of democracy, yet the anonymous nature of the Internet allows people to be lazy.
Rather than free debate and a true exchange of ideas, sites across the Internet have become nothing more than public deposits of misguided, aimless anger and hate.
It is up to the population to change this and allow the Internet to be used to its full potential. Rather than hiding behind anonymity in order to harm and demean other citizens, anonymity should be used as a tool aimed against corruption and injustice when the time is right.
Let the Internet be the sanctuary for open thought, communication and debate that it is able to be.
When governments abuse their people, let anonymity be the weapon against tyranny. But to misguide that weapon of anonymity against the good nature of other people for no reason is an unacceptable infringement upon the responsibility of the citizenry.
It is important to consider that as the Internet becomes more omnipresent, we can continue to let the world grow crueler, or begin to treat one another like the human beings that we are.