Regarding your anecdote: IMO it works for 4chan because the entire system is built around anonymity and a troll culture. If every message on 4chan is a trolling opportunity but every user is anonymous, trolling looses a lot of it's 'fun'. You get no notoriety, the target is primed for it already and is protected by their own anonymity.
Trolling on 4chan has been elevated to such an art-form that it takes more energy to successfully troll than basically anywhere else on the internet. And that's saying something.
The problem is that very few other platforms can keep that anonymous relationship equal in all cases, and that's where the real problems start. The power relationship becomes unbalanced and the equation tips in favour of bad behaviour.
Take twitter as the classic case. A lot of feminist writers will use semi-anonymous accounts because of the level of vitriol that is commonly thrown at them. Then some particularly nasty individual doxxes their account and the level of personally abusive and physically threatening messages increases dramatically.
Feminists and friends fling just as much shit as anybody else on Twitter. During the Piers Morgan Twitter flamefest, you should have seen some of the hatred thrown his way. In particular I remember the person who wished him to get "dick cancer." I posted a link one time to an article critical of the DailyKos response to a particular Ted Rall cartoon, and a social justice warrior flamed the shit out of me for _weeks_ after I stopped responding, because I didn't think a badly drawn caricature of Obama constituted racism.
I don't think you need anonymity to make trolling lose its flavor, I have used plenty of forums over the years where there were persistent identities but the sophisticated (compared to twitter users) forum members just didn't take the bait and trolling attempts usually just fell flat.
I can corroborate this. I follow a few SJWs on twitter and the vitriol they post is often very surprisingly potent. I actually think that pound for pound, threads on 4chan on topics like race or gender politics end up being better conversations because the anonymity takes away the need for people to demonstrate their status as provocateurs.
Trolling on 4chan has been elevated to such an art-form that it takes more energy to successfully troll than basically anywhere else on the internet. And that's saying something.
The problem is that very few other platforms can keep that anonymous relationship equal in all cases, and that's where the real problems start. The power relationship becomes unbalanced and the equation tips in favour of bad behaviour.
Take twitter as the classic case. A lot of feminist writers will use semi-anonymous accounts because of the level of vitriol that is commonly thrown at them. Then some particularly nasty individual doxxes their account and the level of personally abusive and physically threatening messages increases dramatically.