Quote, unquote: on shedding the cloak of anonymity

"Websites have been encouraging cowardice. They allow users to hide behind virtual anonymity to make hasty, ill-researched and often intemperate comments regardless of any consideration for personal hurt or corporate damage....

"If you are speaking up, then speak up proudly and with responsibility. Embrace this opportunity to come out from the cloak of anonymity. That’s for the cowards for whom “freedom of speech” is something to rant about rather than an expression to live by. With all its obligations."

-- From a statement by Martin King, the online editor of The Independent newspaper in Britain, which is discontinuing anonymous commenting on its site.