For obscure people, especially anonymous randos, there are practically no consequences. When I hear people complain about "repercussions" from online speech, they usually just mean criticism. And that's all the article author seems to mean too. "I realize this section makes me sound like a Perfectly Logical Person who does not get upset by negative public criticism, I promise this is not at all the case and I have 100000 feelings about everything that happens on the internet and get upset all the time."
Of course famous people can get into some trouble for what they said in the past, but they usually bounce back and then find a new crowd of followers with a different ideological cast than their previous crowd of followers.
This is not true, regular "anonymous randos" get doxed regularly and the crazies call up an demand they be 'fired', they get threats to their family, friends and livelyhood.
No, you made the existence claim, so the burden of proof is on you:
> regular "anonymous randos" get doxed regularly and the crazies call up an demand they be 'fired', they get threats to their family, friends and livelyhood.
You can't even provide one example? I'll let you search for it. I'm not going to search for unicorns or pots of gold at the end of rainbows.
Writing style and unique patterns (like time of posting, argument frequency, ideology affiliation, and so on) are some of the things that could reveal someone’s identity and result in actions taken against him.
It happened to me and a friend, who too is in the IT and we go to great length to be anonymous. If something is possible to such a degree, it ought to happen. If it happened to us, it surely happens to somebody else too, especially considering that most people are not too concerned about hiding their trails.
Because that's how discussions are supposed to work. You make a claim, and you support your claim with evidence and reasons. You don't refuse to give evidence and run away just because your interlocutor disagrees with you. After all, what would be the point in providing evidence to someone who already agrees with you?
Of course famous people can get into some trouble for what they said in the past, but they usually bounce back and then find a new crowd of followers with a different ideological cast than their previous crowd of followers.