Balancing online safety with the right to anonymity | Letters

Banning anonymous social media accounts could backfire, says Keith Flett. Plus letters from John Freeman and Paul Komierowski

Owen Jones (Banning anonymous social media accounts would only stifle free speech and democracy, 25 October) is right that the online safety bill requires serious consideration. There are real abuses that need to be tackled, but that must not mean a wider trawl to censor opinion critical of authority and the government.

We have been here before, when letters were the means used to deliver threats in the early 19th century. EP Thompson reviewed some of the letters in his essay The Crime of Anonymity and discovered a wide range of issues, from personal threats to industrial grievances. In many cases, the authors were brought to trial and sentenced to transportation or death.