Anonymity Effects Explained
Anonymity reduces accountability, increases disinhibition, enables experimentation, and amplifies both extreme honesty and trolling behavior online.
April 2025
January 2025
Deindividuation: Why Anonymity and Crowds Make People Do Things They Never Would Alone
In 1969, Philip Zimbardo had NYU students administer electric shocks to another person. Half wore their normal clothes and name tags. Half wore hoods and oversized lab coats that concealed their identities. The hooded participants delivered shocks twice as long as the identified participants — to both a pleasant and an unpleasant confederate. Deindividuation: when identity is submerged, behavior changes in ways that cannot be explained by who the people are.
September 2024
What the Dark Web Actually Is: Separating Myth from Reality
The dark web explained: difference between surface, deep, and dark web; how Tor works; who built it; Silk Road, law enforcement limits, and legitimate uses.