User blog comment:XelNecra/Anonymity - The Source of all poison?/@comment-5266525-20130127160738/@comment-69.141.8.150-20130127213558

"If you look at somewhere like popular pages on Facebook, and you'll see that there are still tons of people spouting extremely bigoted opinions despite their name being on full display."

Exactly! Anonymity isn't to blame and companies like Blizzard and Google have their heads up their asses trying to force everyone to to be public.

The real problem is lack of consequence and a lack of visceral impact. Believe it or not, even the biggest jerk reacts to causing someone emotional pain (unless they are psychopathic). This is why overt teasing generally stops after high school, people develop empathy whether they like it or not, seeing others in distress immediately causes us to feel some level of distress as well. This is what allows not just internet bullies but also road rage and other forms of hatred against faceless groups to happen.