The Importance of Anonymity
Why, you might ask, am I so passionate about the right to speak anonymously. Why would anyone even want to speak anonymously if they have nothing to hide? Why wouldn't an honest person want to stand behind her words? And why should we even trust someone who only speaks anonymously?
These are all valid questions. And I will be the first to concede that someone who speaks anonymously is at an inherent disadvantage when trying to debate someone who is not. All other things being equal, someone who is anonymous will not be taken as seriously as someone who stands behind their work using their real name. The person who uses her real name lends whatever personal credibility she has to her arguments, whereas the anonymous person brings no personal credibility to the table. It is impossible to check the background of an anonymous person, so it is hard to gage whether they are honest or not, and it is hard to discover what hidden agenda they may have. The only thing that an anonymous person brings to the table is her evidence and her logic, and it is this, and this alone, that we must use to evaluate what she is saying.
But despite the drawbacks of remaining anonymous, the use of anonymity goes back a long way. Our Founding Fathers valued the right to speak anonymously. In fact, had they not had the ability to speak anonymously, the United States as we know it might not exist today. The Federalist Papers was a series of essays that were pivotal in explaining the newly written Constitution and instrumental in persuading the people to adapt it. The authors of the Papers, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison chose to remain anonymous by publishing their work under the name "Publius". Your guess as to why they wanted to remain anonymous is as good as mine. Perhaps they were afraid of recriminations from political enemies, but it seems more likely that they wanted their essays to be judged by the ideas they contained, rather than by the identity of the authors. Indeed, one reason to remain anonymous is to prevent people from dismissing your ideas based on who you are before they even give you a fair hearing. I suspect that this is the reason why Benjamin Franklin wrote under pseudonyms such as "Silence Dogood", "Alice Addertongue", "Fanny Mournful", and "Obadiah Plainman", and why John Adams wrote under names such as "Vindex the Avenger", "Populus", "An American", and "A Son of Liberty".
There are times when remaining anonymous is absolutely necessary for safety. Chinese dissidents know this only too well. They know that if the Chinese government discovers their identities they may be jailed for discussing state secrets such as child labor laws, police behavior, and labor strikes. Yahoo! has been notorious in helping the Chinese government track down dissidents. China is hardly the only country that suppresses its dissidents. Suppose someone who had relatives in North Korea made a video critical of Kim Jung Il. North Korea could send Youtube a DMCA, and then Youtube would behave like a lackey for a murderous tyrant with a bad haircut and remove the video. The person who posted the video would have to chose between filing a DMCA counternotice with a false name on it and perjuring herself, accepting the fact that she could not post her video on Youtube, or filing a counternotice and risking that her relatives would be hunted down like dogs and brutally slaughtered.
Of course, dissidents aren't the only ones whose safety or well being requires anonymity. Imagine that you were a plant worker who had made a video documenting that your plant was illegally dumping toxins into a river. You may want to post the video to make sure your story received maximum exposure. If you did this using your real name then you would certainly be fired and you would probably be the target of a lawsuit. Or perhaps you might want to post about your political views or your religion but fear that you might not get that promotion if your beliefs don't fall in line with those of the bigwigs at your company. Or perhaps you have had a bad experience with a company or its products that you think other potential consumers should know about. Sign your name to a bad review and you heighten your risk of being sued by a company that wants to shut you up.
And finally, their is the problem of "haters". Unfortunately, death threats are not that uncommon on the internet. The good news is that vast majority of death threats are made by people who have no intentions of carrying them out. The bad news is, there are a few whack jobs who may act out their aggression real life. Remaining anonymous is the best way to remain safe.
And, I believe, this is something that Youtube recognizes. In fact, their Community Guidelines say
There is zero tolerance for predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, invading privacy, or the revealing of other members' personal information. Anyone caught doing these things may be permanently banned from YouTube.
Of course, this rule doesn't apply if someone makes a death threat against you and then sends bogus DMCAs to Youtube about your video. In that case, Youtube will suspend your account unless you either perjure yourself by filing a counternotice with a false name on it or inform the person who has threatened you of your real identity by filing a counternotice with your real name on it.
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