“people still cannot be freely outspoken under their real identities”
I think it's more of where you choose to be outspoken. On Facebook you can post updates on important life things, things no one cares about, or even touchy subjects without much fear of being harassed. On places like Reddit, or deeper down into 4chan, or other sites that are known for their 'lynching' it gets riskier to be so 'outspoken' with your real identity because there are larger quantities of people that you don't know that are way off from your personal network thus making the possibilites well endless.
When it's an accepted peer to peer network it's different from either a 'real' user to anonymous user or anon user to anon user. The more anonymous people are, the more brave they become but as soon as their real identity is attached, things don't get quite so serious, at least not in the main factions of social media. The Wizard in Oz is a good example of how you can hide behind a figure or 'name' but when the curtain is peeled back, it turns out you're not much better or different than anyone else.
edit: added some more to hopefully make my point more clear.
Yes, people are braver under anonymity. Over the Internet there are more anonymous readers who can access a public discussion and a poster's real identity-- thus more chance that one of these anonymous readers are crazy enough to cross the line and exploit their knowledge of the poster's identity to harass them in real life.
Before the Internet it would've been a lot more difficult to read all these dissenting opinions/discussions but also harder for a person to commit harassment. My entire point is that the Internet is a double edged sword (But im sure we all know that already). That said, the pros do outweigh the cons :).
I think it's more of where you choose to be outspoken. On Facebook you can post updates on important life things, things no one cares about, or even touchy subjects without much fear of being harassed. On places like Reddit, or deeper down into 4chan, or other sites that are known for their 'lynching' it gets riskier to be so 'outspoken' with your real identity because there are larger quantities of people that you don't know that are way off from your personal network thus making the possibilites well endless.
When it's an accepted peer to peer network it's different from either a 'real' user to anonymous user or anon user to anon user. The more anonymous people are, the more brave they become but as soon as their real identity is attached, things don't get quite so serious, at least not in the main factions of social media. The Wizard in Oz is a good example of how you can hide behind a figure or 'name' but when the curtain is peeled back, it turns out you're not much better or different than anyone else.
edit: added some more to hopefully make my point more clear.