Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Service Providers

Anonymity can enable both healthy online interactions like support-seeking and toxic behaviors like hate speech. How do online service providers balance these threats and opportunities? This two-part qualitative study examines the challenges perceived by open collaboration service providers in allowing anonymous contributions to their projects. We interviewed eleven people familiar with organizational decisions related to privacy and security at five open collaboration projects and followed up with an analysis of public discussions about anonymous contribution to Wikipedia. We contrast our findings with prior work on threats perceived by project volunteers and explore misalignment between policies aiming to serve contributors and the privacy practices of contributors themselves.