I would call "constructive rule-breaking" something else. Perhaps "structurally required rule-breaking". Constructive rule-breaking sounds like breaking rules to achieve positive ends i.e. prosocial rule-breaking. Saying that we should *punish* this kind of rule-breaking also sounds like we want to punish the rule-breaker, but we actually want to punish the *rule-maker*.
There's even a nice catchy rhyme there – don't punish the rule-breaker, punish the rule-maker!
Also, even if someone does post pseudonymously, that's frequently only a paper-thin barrier in terms of actually finding them, as demonstrated by how easy it was to find the woman behind LibsOfTikTok.
Most people on social media post "public" things for an audience of ~Dunbar's number without thinking about it. Take almost any post that touches on some subject with emotional resonance and put it in front of thousands and thousands of people with an uncharitable framing and if you haven't completely screwed their life up you've definitely made their next few days or weeks on social media miserable, even if you didn't intend to (LoTT clearly does intend to do exactly this, of course, she knows exactly the game she's playing). I saw a pretty tame vent tweet from a mom about dealing with newly adult kids result in CPS being called to their house a couple weeks ago because someone criticized that initial tweet, that criticism struck a chord, and all of a sudden tons of accounts well outside the sphere were dunking on them, a ton of people were post-hoc justifying the pile-on, and somewhere in there some people called CPS. What was most frustrating to me was not the blow-up, because I don't think that was really intended on the part of the few initial critics, but the rationalization the people involved did to justify their behaviour after the fact, after it became abundantly clear that the person in question was fine and decent and mostly just a bit cringe.
I would call "constructive rule-breaking" something else. Perhaps "structurally required rule-breaking". Constructive rule-breaking sounds like breaking rules to achieve positive ends i.e. prosocial rule-breaking. Saying that we should *punish* this kind of rule-breaking also sounds like we want to punish the rule-breaker, but we actually want to punish the *rule-maker*.
There's even a nice catchy rhyme there – don't punish the rule-breaker, punish the rule-maker!
Also, even if someone does post pseudonymously, that's frequently only a paper-thin barrier in terms of actually finding them, as demonstrated by how easy it was to find the woman behind LibsOfTikTok.
Most people on social media post "public" things for an audience of ~Dunbar's number without thinking about it. Take almost any post that touches on some subject with emotional resonance and put it in front of thousands and thousands of people with an uncharitable framing and if you haven't completely screwed their life up you've definitely made their next few days or weeks on social media miserable, even if you didn't intend to (LoTT clearly does intend to do exactly this, of course, she knows exactly the game she's playing). I saw a pretty tame vent tweet from a mom about dealing with newly adult kids result in CPS being called to their house a couple weeks ago because someone criticized that initial tweet, that criticism struck a chord, and all of a sudden tons of accounts well outside the sphere were dunking on them, a ton of people were post-hoc justifying the pile-on, and somewhere in there some people called CPS. What was most frustrating to me was not the blow-up, because I don't think that was really intended on the part of the few initial critics, but the rationalization the people involved did to justify their behaviour after the fact, after it became abundantly clear that the person in question was fine and decent and mostly just a bit cringe.