Anonymity should be allowed for social media.

My opponent made a very strong argument that I will first proceed to rebut against. Then I will reinstate my final stance for voters. "We just need to consider the case of the Atheist bloggers in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh that have been jailed for saying something as simple as "I do not believe in god".(1,2) Maybe I should add that the blogger in question from Saudi Arabia is also going to get lashed 1000 times!" This is very saddening to hear. Unfortunately, places such as Saudi Arabia do not have freedom of speech or religion, so people in the country posting those messages are using acts of civil disobedience. They were taking that risk and probably made a stronger impact by revealing their identity. Also, keep in mind that governments truly against freedom of speech would probably take the time to track down the location of an anonymous poster, so anonymity would not be a huge road block for those officials. "Well this is clearly not the case for the Alabama blogger Roger Shuler who never did anything wrong in terms of defamation for 9 years on his blog. (3) Now there are two charges and jail time, even though the first amendment is probably being disregarded in both these cases." This person was wrongfully charged. Shuler probably never even bothered to think that he would be posting something that could send him to jail because it was not a post that should send him to jail. He had every right to post what he did. "My opponent says that signing up for services will stop cyberbulling, which I will touch on in the next section again. The fact is you can still get around these sign ups and ensure your anonymity on-line by using VPNs or TorBrowsers.(4, 5) As such cyberbullying will not stop as these people will do what they always do anyway with the help of proxys etc." I never said that signing up for services will stop cyberbullying. I said that it would help prevent cyberbullying and make the cyberbullies easier to track down. There will always be ways to get around showing your identity. I will use the same comparison that I use against people saying that eliminating guns won't stop violence- We have drug laws, but people still trade and use drugs. So just because people are finding ways around the law, we shouldn't have any regulations at all? Rules are enforced to help discourage and prevent wrongdoing, but that doesn't mean they eliminate it totally. Bullying will always be an issue, but by allowing anonymity we are only encouraging the problem. "The fact is the Internet is becoming more restrictive now with bizarre policies in place. For example, why do you have to give your phone number to sign up for an e-mail adress? Its not necessary, unless they want to be able to pinpoint you. Now while this may sound like a conspiuracy and probably is. Lets not forget that the NSA listening in on all conversations was considered a conspiracy too by many people.(6) High NSA peeps, I hate you :)" This argument is irrelevant, for it is making a case against the NRA and internet monitoring. But just to answer your question- you have to give your phone number to sign up for email addresses because it is an extra security step to prevent hackers. Social media sights (i.e.- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) do not require (though it may be optional) phone numbers or addresses and such, making this argument irrelevant. "A child using the Internet needs to be taught responsibility by their parents. The fact is cyberbullying can take place and will take place even if we try take away anonymity which is impossible. A responsible parents job is to monitor their childs Internet use and make sure they are not using it for bad purposes. In fact even social media used to have age limits on them, however this has all changed as parents are not taking responsibility and the companies have giving up playing parent.(7) In essence cyberbullying could be stopped by parental control, so the problem starts at home and not on-line with anonymity." Yes, parents should be taking more responsibility. The problem is that they are not. Some parents just aren't as aware, and some are not technology literate. Major problems such as cyberbullying cannot be prevented in just one way. Parents need to be aware, and the bullies' identities need to be known. It is a multi step solution. As I stated in my opening argument, the cons outweigh the pros in this debate. While sometimes people prefer posting anonymously, this opens up too many doorways of danger. Cyberbullies can get away with their terrible acts. Anyone can post rude or mean comments without being tracked down. All in all, it makes the media world a large, vague, and dangerous sea of posts. Sources: http://amnesty.org... http://www.huffingtonpost.com...