Ethics Topic: Anonymity and Comment Wars

News sites, blogs, and all sorts of web resources now come with a comment feature so that the reader can join the conversation started by the article. Look around at popular news articles, though, and you'll find many anonymous comments made by people who used screen names rather than real names. How often do those anonymous comments turn nasty? They can so easily become hostile, disrespectful, and disruptive to the overall conversation. This might happen anyway, but we might assume that the ability to post anonymously makes people feel freer to be rude.

What are the ethical concerns in this situation? Should we be concerned that anonymity lead people to be more disrespectful of others? Should we be concerned about the widespread practice of hostile, uncivil debate that often takes place online? Is engaging in this practice unethical at the individual level? Is it damaging to society at the cultural level?