Eugene Volokh writes:
There’s been a lot of debate about anonymous comments. Some journalists are calling on newspapers to not allow anonymous comments, and I understand the sentiment — anonymity sometimes does encourage rudeness and worse.
At the same time, modern tort law and antidiscrimination law can potentially make it very dangerous for people to comment under their own names.
[…]
But my sense is that this would indeed lead to the sacrifice of a great deal of valuable speech — and the risk of loss of employment opportunities stemming from the risk of employer liability is a substantial part of the reason.
Read more on The Volokh Conspiracy.