Recently, there have been some conflicts among Donggukians in Dongguk Bamboo Forest, a Facebook page that students share their ideas and discuss any topics they want to base on anonymity. This time, there were arguments after a report of a male student sitting on the seat for the pregnant was posted on the page. It fired a controversy by asking if it is okay for non-pregnant people to sit on the seats for the pregnant. Consequently, divided stances were made, and this resulted in a conflict, making other students knit their brows.
It is not the first time that conflicts on morality took place in anonymous online community. Since people do not have to reveal who they are, they can express their opinions freely. Also, the anonymous system, which does not reveal the identity of the writers, lets people have less responsibility for their comments. For example, when a person shows his or her position which does not fit an ethical standard, there is no way to find out who the person is. Therefore, introducing the real-name system is quite necessary to the open square for discussion, for example, Bamboo Forest page.
I am not contending that every written post need the writers’ information. Of course, if those are related to extremely private contents or the ones whose aims are to reveal certain organization’s bad customs, the right to ensure security should be kept. What I want to insist is that at least the articles with the topic which has possibility of discussion should be based on the real-name system. I do not think it is totally impossible because many people open their information by writing their comments on each posting, not requesting the page manager to hide their identity. Therefore, using comments can be applied to realize the real-name system in the page.
Since students get to be conscious of the public’s eyes, they would try to find out suitable supporting grounds for their opinions. In this way, baseless ideas with which most people disagree, at least, in terms of morality, will not be made thoughtlessly. Then, people can have discussions in the open online environment without causing any unnecessary conflicts.