On anonymity and agency

Because nothing is more freeing than an invisibility cloak on the internet

I started my tech career at Instagram in early 2014, when the product was almost entirely photos and filters. There were no Stories, no Reels, no advertising, no sponsored content, and no influencers in the way that we know them today.

At the time, there was an obsession in consumer technology with real identity. For the most part, real identity was synonymous with trust, credibility, and safety; if your name and face were attached to your content, the stakes were presumably higher. Be a good human online, and you could make it out unscathed. Be a bad human online, and the consequences could be costly, personally or professionally. Section 230 aside, playing arbiter of good and bad was (and still is) its own moral and operational dilemma.

Unfortunately, there is a shadow side to strict rules and sanctimonious enforcement of real identity online. People are forced to present or censor themselves in a way that appeases others or appears innocuous. It’s no surprise that people love snarking on content creators; much of their content seems disingenuous, when in reality, most are simply ordinary people catering to what the audience and algorithm expects of them. In the end, it’s performative all the way down.