“The dual nature of anonymity and shared identity can allow a new reserved civic participation that can make us more comfortable interacting with fellow community members who can otherwise seem very different or foreign to us, which can perhaps also increase our tolerance of diversity.”

This reads like some kind of cathedral psyop to accomplish pre-canned regime priorities, like the “misinformation” thing from a few years ago. Increasing tolerance of diversity isn't a good thing. Diversity, even when it isn’t a stand-in for savages terrorizing normal people with impunity, is a complication and friction of all social processes. In fact, i would say the great value of anonymity is the ability to decrease our tolerance for diversity. On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog, and no one knows where you live, so you can be held to a common meritocratic standard without special treatment backed by intimidation. This is evidently contrary to the aims of diversity-pushers.

This kind of document always comes across as a bit tone-deaf. “We need to break up these self-sorted local social groups” and then in the very next sentence “we have unfortunately experienced a decline in participation in fraternities, churches, etc”. Does the author stop to wonder whether the latter is an obvious and direct consequence of the former? Forcing diversity into specialized local contexts just fucks them up causing people to leave.

I propose the opposite plan: let us use anonymity, local sorting, reputation systems, and digital mechanisms to create spaces that can be maximally hostile to diversity, maximally specialized into a particular worldview and way of life, and utterly without imposed fetters. I have a dream of armies of anonymous frat bros reared on out-of-control “filter bubble” forum discussions spilling out in a great jihad across the known universe, terrorizing cowering masses of overly diverse and therefore weak normie schoolmarms. This would totally solve the “bowling alone” problem and use much digital democracy to solve many other social problems, but it wouldnt be at all to the liking of people like the OP author.