//Anonymity has been widely rejected by most newsprint around the world.//

If I get a letter in the paper they'll publish my name and my suburb. If they published my name, phone number and street address I wouldn't write them letters. What is to stop somebody misusing that information?

What is to stop hackers obtaining and misusing information provided to websites like this? Good internet security? It doesn't come cheap - a one-horse website like this wouldn't be able to afford it. Dave, would you really want some hacker to obtain your home address and pass it on to a pro-Palestinian extremist? Maybe now you're beginning to see the gaping holes in your cunning plan.

//Popular talk back radio shows have a seven second delete button to filter calls deemed to be outside what is legally permitted.//

Web forums have rules of conduct and moderators to filter posts deemed to be outside what it is permissible. This website states explicitly in its rules (I'm surprised you never bothered to read them) that contributors must "Observe Australian copyright and DEFAMATION LAWS and all other laws relating to acceptable speech." (emphasis added). So if you see something defamatory you can have a whinge to Graham and he'll press the delete button.

But frankly, Dave, if you're the sort to get your frilly panties in a bunch and launch frivolous lawsuits over the postings of the trolls, lunatics, halfwits and other human detritus that are so prevalent on internet forums, then maybe internet forums aren't the place for somebody as petty-minded as yourself? Maybe you'd be happier sticking to the print media, so that when you read something that upsets you you can make yourself feel better by wasting precious court time with pointless defamation actions.

#Yuyutsu

Attempting to defend your defamatory comment is disgusting. If you are so sure it is not defamatory why are you not prepared to identify yourself and stand behind it?

Yes - Crawling back under your rock guarantees you will escape being picked up by the Canberra regime or is it "the Australian authorities"?

Wow - "the danger exists and we cannot be too careful."

Watch out Australia and heed Yuyutsu's warning.

Makes as much sense as his or her claim that 3 million Chinese should occupy the West Bank.

#Toni

I don't think you have endeared yourself to anonymous posters by describing them as "the trolls, lunatics, halfwits and other human detritus that are so prevalent on internet forums".

Many are certainly not.

As I have stated previously - those wishing to post anonymously can continue to do so providing they have first supplied their verifiable names and addresses and phone numbers.

I know what Graham can do - but as I have stated on many occasions I am happy to leave the growing number of defamatory comments on-line to establish the level of hatred and personal denigration of myself that is being made under the cover of anonymity. It is increasing in its virulence - probably in frustration by those engaging in it being unable to find anything in my articles which is inaccurate or not factual.

So they shoot the messenger and ignore the message.

They seek to make wild and unsubstantiated claims that have nothing to do with my articles in order to divert attention from those articles.

Their anguish is a sure sign that my articles are hitting the mark. All they have in reply is personal vilification.

Upwards and onwards ... You don't agree with my suggestion. That is fine. That is your perfect entitlement and you have put your views cogently without resorting to insulting me personally - although launching frivolous law suits is not the kind of action I would advise anyone to undertake.

My frilly panties are not bunched. Maybe your's will be when the Security Council decisions are made known.

Dear David,

You have not answered my question, which was:

Wouldn't you agree with me that you SEEM to be on the regime's side?

Your last post only seems to strengthen that impression, as you refer to them by the legal term, the way that gang likes to call themselves... "the Australian authorities".

But still I may be wrong and given you still consider my earlier observation defamatory, thus untrue, then please inform us to the contrary, whether my impression of you being on the "Australian authorities"' side is mistaken. If I have mistaken you to be on their side while you are not, then I give you my full, humble and unreserved apologies.

I think all in all these plans by the UN are concerning.
Obviously if they make new laws then someone will have to police these laws, (another expense to the taxpayer) and who says whats accepted speech in one country is going to be accepted speech another, and where does it go from there?
Another kind of regulation upon the people, we'll have cops knocking down doors over internet comments to confiscate computers as evidence and all because some people are big cry babies and haven't developed a thick enough skin to cope with life.

Also, the next step will be to tax the internet.

I didn't find your comment offensive Yuyutsu.

I don't post much on OLO these days. I've always posted anonymously however Graham has a valid email address for me. The nature of Graham's moderation has left me with a high level of trust that he would not misuse that. Other sites a little less open to dissenting views don't leave that same degree of trust.

Posting under an alias allowed me to comment from first hand experience on topics where posting under my own name would have by default identified other parties (if I talk about my experience of DV then it pretty easily leads to the abuser which would have complicated our troubled attempts to work together raising our son at the time). It would have left me even more exposed to the generally hard to combat discretion the CSA has in some of it's judgements than I already was.

It has allowed me to comment on contentious topics with only a minimal risk of those comments hurting me in the workplace if a manager holds a strongly different view.

I know of at least one former poster who had someone turn up at their door to sort an issue out after being identified online.

I've not over my years on OLO seen any indication that posters using an alias act any more dishonestly or abusively than those posting under what appear to be real names. I suspect that for the most part it's about character rather than identification.

Some have reasons to use an alias, others don't see those issues in the same light.

R0bert

//those wishing to post anonymously can continue to do so providing they have first supplied their verifiable names and addresses and phone numbers.//

Oxymoron. If you've supplied your name, address and phone number then you are, by definition, not anonymous.

//as I have stated on many occasions I am happy to leave the growing number of defamatory comments on-line to establish the level of hatred and personal denigration of myself that is being made under the cover of anonymity.//

To what end? Personal denigration of yourself is of most concern to yourself - very few people are likely to care much at all about personal attacks directed at you, and nobody is going to be as bothered by them as yourself. Exactly what are you trying to prove here? That there are trolls on the internet? Dude, we know.* It seems about as productive as proving that water is wet. There is no Nobel for demonstrating the bloody obvious.

If the comments upset you ask Graham to delete them, because the only person who really gives a fig about their continued existence is you. Nobody else is that bothered about them, and the fact that you haven't suggests either:
1) You think somebody else cares. We so don't.
2) You aren't really that bothered by them at all, and that your ersatz anguish is a smokescreen for your irrational and unfathomable desire to severely compromise the privacy and security of everyone who uses the internet.

Are you, by any chance, a hacker? Or an employee of intelligence organisation? Because they're about the only intelligent people who have fully considered the potential consequences of such a reckless and foolhardy proposal actually supporting it. Or have you just failed to consider the potential consequences of your reckless and foolhardy proposal? Probably the latter.

* The internet is the natural habitat of the troll, and if they're eradicated it will upset the delicate balance of the ecosystem.