Internet anonymity increases cyberbullying and trolling  In normal social life, people restrain themselves in what they say to others. When anonymously online, people behave differently: whatever they say and do can be said and done without consequence, because it isn’t traceable to them as persons, or, as comic artist John Gabriel is often paraphrased 'Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Idiot’. [1]  The consequences of this behaviour are ugly or downright harmful. Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMPORGs) like World of Warcraft face a constant atmosphere of verbal abuse created by their players. And there’s worse than simple trolling like this: anonymity increases the effects bullying. For example, where schoolchildren originally were bullied in schools by bullies whose faces they knew, with online anonymity the bullying goes on anonymously online and invades every aspect of the victims’ lives – aggravating their suffering so much that in some cases they actually commit suicide, as for example did Canadian teenager Amanda Todd. [2]  That’s why organizations maintaining online communities, whether they be social networking sites like Facebook, MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and newspaper sites like The Guardian should (legally) be required to (publicly) verify the person behind an account or take it offline if it remains anonymous, as New York senators recently proposed. [3]  [1] The Independent, ‘Rhodri Marsden: Online anonymity lets us behave badly’, July 14, 2010. URL:   [2] Huffington Post, ‘Amanda Todd: Bullied Canadian Teen Commits Suicide After Prolonged Battle Online And In School’, October 11, 2012. URL:   [3] Wired, ‘New York Legislation Would Ban Anonymous Online Speech’, May 22, 2012. URL: