If a pseudonymous account has a track record of the best work, pay that person accordingly, regardless of where they live or what school they attended. Pseudonymity removes the bias often found in the hiring process.
#Captcha software that 4chan uses verification#
It means better verification systems (eg. First, individuals have more space to express themselves without the worry of “oh, will someone judge me personally.” Second, creating pseudonymously allows for optionality in life: You can build up expertise in an entirely new industry and use a portfolio of work as an off-ramp into a new career.ĭo the prospects for pseudonymity change in light of the (actual) Elon’s $44 billion move to take Twitter private? The deal’s official press release says that one goal is the creation of a system for “authenticating all humans.” To Bored, this doesn’t mean doxxing. Why? No publisher in Boston wanted to print the work of the real teenage Franklin.Ī default to merit has two related benefits. The young Benjamin Franklin famously wrote under the guise of a middle-aged widow named Silence Dogood. Put another way: Pseudonymity is a potential tonic for rampant credentialism and allows merit to win out. “The difference is that my ventures are mostly judged for those actions, not for where I live or what degrees I have or what I look like.” “I’m pseudonymous but I’m still accountable for my actions,” Bored says. If Bored’s Twitter account made outrageously off-brand statements, he could lose nine years of reputation building and hurt his businesses. He is an active angel investor and just launched a crypto gaming company (Bored Box). An is not persistent at all.įor Bored, persistence and reputation are very important.
A pseudonym can crucially have reputation and metadata associated with it. An anonym is like a where there is no tracing across interactions. The call highlighted for me the key fact that pseudonymity is not anonymity.Ĭoinbase Global Inc.’s former chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan coined the term “pseudonymous economy” and explains the difference:Ī pseudonym is a persistent name like. The person behind the account also goes by the name “Bored” and started the parody account in 2013.ĭuring our Zoom call, Bored used his real voice but the face I saw was a floating - and expressive - avatar of his Twitter profile picture. I realized this while interviewing a popular pseudonymous Twitter account: whose musings on tech and wild startup ideas that the real Elon Muskmight invent (like a “food truck ferris wheel”) have attracted 1.7 million followers.