You can’t be thrown into prison or fined for saying the wrong thing in the US. That’s what I mean. You might argue that this is not true for some things but it is true for the vast majority of things you could say. Being anonymous matters a great deal more when freedom of speech is not protected.
"You can’t be thrown into prison or fined for saying the wrong thing in the US."
I'm not so sure that's true.
First, many people have found themselves at the receiving end of lawsuits and harassment because they wrote a bad review of a restaurant or said that someone was a skank. This is civil not criminal, but the results are the same, you can lose your house, your money and have years taken up in courts assuming you have the money to finance a defense.
On the criminal side you can get tossed in jail. How that works is you point out on your blog that the local police chief is taking bribes from drug dealers. Then, if you are not anonymous, the police raid your house and find rubber gloves, plastic sandwich bags, carburetor cleaner, ammonia, fish tank tubing, cold tablets, and aluminum foil. You say "What's the big deal I have all those things in my house." That's right, we all do. They are also proof you are a meth manufacturer and possession of them is proof your are guilty, the possession itself of "precursors" is criminal. Since everyone has these things, anyone can be legitimately convicted of running a meth lab, which is a useful tool for silencing dissent.
Or let's talk Julian Assange for example. His identity is known as is who those he critiques. He is up for "rape by surprise" charges and leaders in the US have called for the death penalty against him. This is free speech?
Constitutional protection of the freedom of speech is all fine and dandy in theory. You might not end up in jail, but you can find yourself in court, which, for most, is an excellent deterrent of voicing their opinion. Aside that, once people, real people, know who you are, your controversial opinions might very well give rise to real threats. Remember the whole Jyllands-Posten fiasco?
I agree with your last sentence 100%, but, at least for me, complete anonymity is a necessity. You can relate (f.i.) to my online persona, which is consistent and available for discussion. There is no need to know my real name.
Hey, I’m commenting anonymous on HN, too. I have obviously nothing against anonymity. All I’m saying is that to imply that free speech is somehow meaningless without anonymity sounds very wrong to me.
It's not meaningless - just a lot more fragile. Clearly anonymous speech isn't as trusted as non-anonymous speech, but there is a tradeoff that leaves anonymity very valuable in many situations.
The problem with freedom of speech is that it just guarantees a legal right to say something. It doesn't free you from the consequences of saying it. When you want to speak out against an majority belief, without anonymity you risk repercussions that aren't necessarily related to legal implications. Anonymity protects free speech participants from the opposing majority mob.
