Facebook, Google other tech firms must verify identities under proposed UK law
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Google, FB and other tech giants changed the norms around this completely for most Internet users. Once these platforms realised it was easier to monetise their users, and control abuse when dealing with real identities, they pushed hard for verified accounts (e.g. Google Plus) even though this is antithetical to the founding ideas of cyberspace.
Today we have two Internets, one where anonymity is still possible but you can reveal your true name if you want (e.g. HN), and another of walled gardens with verified identities. The UK government is proposing to enshrine the fully identified concept of the Internet into law. While this will prevent some abuse it's a sad reflection on how some of the early values of cyberspace have been lost, where people could be who they wanted to be, and freely discuss topics they might not wish to have associated with their real names forever. Politicians whose main interaction with the Internet is through their Twitter accounts just don't get that.
In facebook groups with thousands of members with no real bar or entry, you're really anonymous and no more distinctive than anyone else if you don't make yourself stand out. (By bar of entry, I mean things like even finding the site in the first place)
I find it a bit sad that thousands of people are on FB using their real names and turning person who says stupid things about several different hobbies into a permanent part of their own fairly permanent identity and I don't actually see how it helps anything. But maybe people who don't find it creepy see something I don't.
Also... google hasn't existed the entire life of the web.
On social media groups and public posts, you are named but you are nobody to everyone else.
On forums, you are unnamed but you gather a reputation and become somebody.
(And on HN and Reddit, you are both unnamed AND a nobody.)
And I think it’s because on forums, it was a combination of (1) a smaller community and (2) you had an avatar and sometimes a signature, which made every post of yours memorable.
I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the notion of the web as a self protecting organism that naturally rejects misinformation and stops bad actors is completely wrong.
I don’t know that I’m 100% in favor of what is being proposed here (partly because I expect there are likely nefarious reasons why governments are pushing it so hard.)
But I also think you can’t ignore that misinformation from anonymous actors has pushed democracy to the brink of collapse, and “that wasn’t the original idea of the web” isn’t the best rebuttal.
Dare I say I don't think insistence on authentic identity will improve things.
Requiring real world identities to post online had a number of chilling effects on speech online.
- LGBTQ people were outed after having their online persona linked to their real world identity.
- People who need to maintain strong personal/professional life separations have been outed (ex: Slate Star Codex)
- People have had their lives upended by being part of an angry community (ex: Blizzards RealID caused revealing peoples identity to the gamer community. Love my games but wow does that community love doxxing and sometimes SWATing)
- It has not prevented spam / trolls / people being hateful online (ex: Nextdoor)
This has been a long standing conflict (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymwars). The UKs opinion has always been one of providing as much information as possible to the government for questionable purposes. This is the same government which constantly wants to backdoor encryption so that they can spy on citizens at any time.
If voters in a democracy are basing their votes on random stuff they read on Facebook or Twitter, the problem isn't misinformation. There is no way to have any platform for distributing information that is guaranteed to only distribute the truth. Any responsible adult should be aware of that and should apply critical thinking to whatever information they see, no matter where it comes from.
Well HN does this thing called shadowbanning, where the user sees their post when logged in, but in a brand new isolated session (when not logged in), their posts are not visible. The only caveat to this is the user spent a considerable amount of energy writing a comment, only to have it ghosted and non-visible to other HN'ers meaning their time was wasted and their ideas essentially censored. Shadowbanning works however, and stops HN getting flooded with spam, but has the sneaky caveat of essentially censoring some content.
It's an interesting question, but the point isn't as clear to me. First of all I believe most people are able to see through misinformation. The biggest blame should be laid on algorithmic feeds that optimise for engagement, and are therefore designed to lead people into self-reinforcing loops where their ideas never get challenged. That's the main bad "innovation" that social media platforms brought; the arguments about dangerous ideas, censorship, and bad actors echo all the way back to the dawn of the printing press.
> But I also think you can’t ignore that misinformation from anonymous actors has pushed democracy to the brink of collapse, and “that wasn’t the original idea of the web” isn’t the best rebuttal.
I think this is overstating the role of "anonymous actors" - plenty of misinformation comes from well-known politicians and simply normal people. Are you referring to FB's concept of "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" and troll-farms in authoritarian countries? This is definitely a problem which platforms have to tackle, but again I don't think it's as huge a factor as people make it out to be and certainly has not pushed democracy to collapse on its own.
As far as my experience goes, those with full long names and professionally taken portraits as icons are easiest to trigger and corner because they only ever believe, refuse or double down. They never back down in embarrassment, or verify claims or make refutes with requisite care, and they are extremely angry by default as well. Complete anonymous posters(like in certain gray website) are very problematic in whole different ways but even those are not as easy to manipulate.
Those aren't (just) their ideals any longer. I adopted them as my own, because I'd like the world to look a little like that.
Besides, what's 20 or 30 years? Since when do we think that the ideals of ancient philosophers, thinkers, religious figures, the FSF[0], heck even the "UNIX philosophy" have nothing to offer just because they're "old"?
Ideas aren't like milk, they don't spoil if you leave them out of the fridge for a few days.
[0] Yes, I know they are controversial, but their ideas were certainly influential.
Also, you seem to be making two contradictory points: 1) Facebook and Google pushed hard for verified accounts 2) Some parts of the internet make it optional to reveal your true name
Verified accounts, as I understand them, on the social platforms are only for people who publicly want to build a brand around their identity. While people have to use a "real name" on Facebook and Google, there's nothing requiring to get verified.
I didn't say that, I only said that we currently have two Internets, but that there has been a shift towards the walled gardens of identified accounts over time. The proponents of the law probably would end up creating loop holes just because their main beef is with the big tech firms, and it would be challenging for a single country to enforce legislation on the rest of Internet.
> Verified accounts, as I understand them, on the social platforms are only for people who publicly want to build a brand around their identity. While people have to use a "real name" on Facebook and Google, there's nothing requiring to get verified.
We may be getting mixed up with the meaning of "verified", I'm talking about accounts where the platform has associated you with your RL identity through some method, not just the process to get a public blue tick.
And, while there may be nothing formal requiring verification, there are many reports of people suddenly getting locked out of their accounts and being required to provide ID or at least a phone number shortly after registration. In fact a phone number is a pretty widespread requirement and it's getting harder to obtain a phone number that's not linked to your identity in some way. I don't see the contradiction in what I wrote, I have simply pointed out trends, not absolutes.
It really depended. For Usenet, many people were posting from their work or university accounts and their names and affiliations were often on display. And real names were also often common on local BBSs where people would even get together in real life. Random forums (and certainly anything to do with warez/cracking/etc.) that's doubtless true.
I still remember when everyone on the internet was fully open about their identities.
When you posted something online, you'd always use your real name. Often you'd also include your work and/or home address, work and/or home phone number, and where you worked with job title.
I'm not saying that's better than what we have now. Just pointing out how the 'net has whiplashed from one extreme to another in a very short time.
Granted, possibly forcing real names will make it easier to catch some bullies; but you won't catch all of them. Conversely you'll have removed an important safe harbor for their victims.
That is the only solution that is compatible with human rights.
The problem is that the strong side still has many ways to bully people even without anonymity. On the other hand the weak side ends up with Nowhere To Hide.
Something to take into account is that culture changes and people change, and some things are situational. Even if you're on the majority side here and now; doesn't mean you might not be on the 'undesirable' side sometime/someplace else.
Moving things into the public sphere, transparency, and protection by the law is what helps weak people. Anonymity is a tool of power, always has been.
Is that why peter thiel not anonymous? Is there a reason why he goes on TV and gives interviews?
> There's a reason why your address and taxes paid are public information in Sweden.
What is the reason?
> Anonymity is a tool of power, always has been.
Is that why the witness protection provides anonymity? Is that why many rape victims are provided with anonymity?
How come you are anonymous then? Because you have so much wealth and power?
Most of his financial dealings are well hidden. Took until last year for propublica to figure out that he was stashing billions into a Roth IRA somehow. So when it comes to things that matter, he very much tries to be.
Transparency brings crime and inequality to light. Sweden publicizes these things because it means you can see disparity clearly. Donors to political parties can't hide. Their information is on display. Someone who makes 8 bucks an hour doesn't gain anything from financial anonymity. Lobbyists, politicians, oligarchs do.
And the reason why we need to have people in witness protection or hide rape victims is because we can not get to their assailants. The fact that with a movement like MeToo say, women collectively started to expose powerful people was significantly better than having to individually hide.
That is privacy, not anonymity.
> Donors to political parties can't hide.
In the US, we have anonymity for small donors. If you donate less $200 I think you can remain anonymous.
> And the reason why we need to have people in witness protection or hide rape victims is because we can not get to their assailants.
No. Even if the assailants are in jail, we provide anonymity/protection in case the assailants have associates who might do harm.
> The fact that with a movement like MeToo say, women collectively started to expose powerful people was significantly better than having to individually hide.
The MeToo had the backing of powerful people/establishment. That's why it worked. Not because of a handful of women. There was political protection provided by the elites. A handful of women doing MeToo in a different environment might get them jailed or even killed.
I agree with you to some degree. I believe politicians and the powerful should not have anonymity and highly limited privacy. I believe that the general public should absolutely have anonymity.
I disagree with your extreme blanket policy of denying anonymity to everyone.
Free speech requires anonymous speech.
It's only when a person is suspect in their conviction they are open to accept new information.
They also came out with the absolutely golden statement this week that it's not too bad that this would put vulnerable people in authoritarian countries at risk, because all we had to do was collapse the governments of Russia, China, much of Africa, Poland, Iran, sizable chunks of the Middle East etc etc. Problem solved!
Just assume everything is unsafe by default, and also free and unrated by default.
I'm not really disagreeing with you, in principal, just pointing out that this ship has already sailed for must of us.
One Amazon account?
I'm sure I must have had at least a couple of dozen. One free Prime trial on each one... <cough>
I hope we're not assuming that each real-life identity only has access to one email address...
I guess the argument from Twitter et al is "oh if we ban a racist troll they just re-register a new account. Sorry nothing we can do!". Well thanks Twitter for trying to ignore the problem, now we end up with legislation like this proposal which will be a fuck-ton more hassle and more importantly chilling-effect than something simpler that probably could have been done earlier but no one could be fagged to do, like e.g. defaulting to allowlist-only messages, sentiment analysis leading to human moderation, IP-based blocks/cooldowns, rate-limiting, client fingerprinting, nipple/genital-detecting ML, reputation-before-posting type systems etc.
Nah mate - nothing we can do! These damn trolls just totally outwit us here at <XX-billion dollar company> with hundreds/thousands of super-smart engineers every time they register a new account! It is unsolvable!
So they can do something, because trolls and bots are not that subtle, and can be detected, and ban is effective, because creating an account with a phone number is cheap, but not free.
And give Twitter valuable real world identities for their users. Forced on them by the government.
Did you catch it?
The issue is the algorithm, not the anonymity.
This is just an excuse to stretch the authoritarian muscle.
The UK government is the pinnacle of "If you haven't got anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about".
Potential police state. The only reason it's not a total nightmare here is I'm sure the police are so underfunded that they couldn't take advantage of all this bullsh!t, even if they wanted to.
This is effective "police state virtue signalling" to its hardcore supporters. Red meat to the dogs. It won't actually mean anything in practice.
Obligatory: But that doesn't mean you give up your identity, for fear of a more resourced and/or different police/state apparatus in future.
This actually makes it worse because this means it will selectively be used against "enemies" of the establishment. That and for select and well-publicized chilling effects.
The British vote against their interests and we laugh about it satiricaly on late night shows.
This isn't government censorship though. It is just a private company that can choose to comply with the law or not. Something something not censorship. Something something children!!
Right now they either don't demand real identity or they have to justify in ways that try to hide their real intent - your real identity makes you a much cleaner and more valuable data point for monetisation and other user-hostile aims. If this passes they can just point the finger at government and blame them. Instead of people being outraged at Facebook for demanding a picture of their driver's license, Facebook will just be saying "Legal requirements in your country demand that we do this" and all the outrage will be directed at government.
Unless politicians are smart enough to also propose a technical framework that prevents it happening, this seems like a boon for big tech.
Facebook has already shown they're barely capable of doing it. Name changes are a known nightmare that result in no action, bans, or temporary suspensions from the service. Other cases also prompt for a government issued ID, such as creating a new account and being flagged by the automated system (this happened a non insignificant amount when the Quest was released).
Between technological inability and societal issues, this decision will only make life worse. I sincerely hope they reverse course.
"Think of the children!" I am; I am thinking of them living in a free society.
If the lack of anonymity on Facebook means people start deleting their Facebook accounts... this is also a good thing.
Assume that tomorrow you started requiring compulsory ID verification for, say, entering public parks. It's possible that this would lead to some improvement in the general conditions of public parks. But you would still think of it as dystopian bullshit. This is the same.
(if it's unclear, Facebook is the sewage filled park)
I don't think many people would disagree with that. What I disagree with is valuing privacy and internet freedoms so little that you'd be willing to sacrifice on those even the tiniest bit just so people behaved better on social media. And really, disagree is an overly tame word for it, and I couldn't overstate just how much so.
Before quitting twitter I had a 5,000+ account blocklist, it’s insurmountable for the average person. The algorithms are the primary issue, back when I only saw content from who I was following it was easy.
No, it'll strip UK people of the safety of online anonymity and do nothing about said hate, trolls and fake accounts still flooding in from the other 194 countries/corners of the internet.
UK has been on a rather ominous surveillance state trip lately.
The problem is not that they've created a spyware empire that has swindled the common man - the problem is that they've swindled politicians and whole countries.
In their greed, they cultivated bot armies that deploy propaganda for corporations and political parties on their platforms. They've swinged laws and elections. And they raked in the profits. If they had kept it just to business and domestic politics, maybe they could get away with this.
But in their arrogance they crossed the line - when Taliban got a twitter account that regulatrly gets into spats with the CIA one, and when Russian state got millions of bots pushing propaganda (and many others)
You have to be breathtakingly arrogant or insanely stupid to think that Putin and the CIA will be playthings of your newsfeed.
The 'free-market of the brain' finally pissed off the only force in the West that's valued above Capitalism, and that's Nationalism / National security. Their business will survive, but they will get cut down to size and never be the players they once were. It won't happen overnight, but I would not hodl their stock.
First, you take away people's ability to learn how to be a good participant by using a low value identity. I did this a lot when I was younger and I think it's extremely important for kids and young adults to have the option of throwing away their identity to start over. Think of it like bankruptcy for your reputation.
I used a pseudonym when I first started participating on open source bug trackers and mailing lists. I think it turns out that I was doing a good job of participating even though I was a bit unsure of myself, but I still think it was a good idea to leave myself the option of abandoning that identity. When I started using my real name I was concerned about tarnishing my permanent reputation, so I was always careful with things I said. I think that's helped me become a much better participant. I never talk politics, I wait a day to post if I'm frustrated, I say please and thank you, and I don't contradict project members unless I can back it up with a provable test case (or qualify it with "in my opinion", etc. if it's subjective).
Second, you're not going to eliminate misinformation if it's propaganda from a nation-state. At that point there's nothing stopping them from creating new identities as needed and those identities will be more valuable because everyone will be operating under the false assumption they're dealing with a natural person with a verified identity. You could force everyone to use their real legal name in an attempt to help people distinguish nationalities, but the appropriateness of that approach is a debate on its own and there's nothing that says a person from the US or UK can't have a Russian or Chinese name. What's next? Are we going to make people participate with their full legal name and address?
Third, you'll create an opportunity for someone else to capture the social media markets by building a better system that doesn't require identity verification. People will take the path of least resistance. That's why YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. got popular. They were easy to use. I'm from Canada. Why would I subject myself to identity verification to use a (foreign) US platform if there's a competing (foreign) Chinese platform that doesn't ask for my photo ID and a face scan?
Opening the door for China or Russia to build competing systems is a bad idea if you're from a western country and a welcome opportunity if you're not. I think there's value in oversight and regulation and, since I'm from Canada, I always favor services that have Canadian regulators (FINTRAC, CRTC, CIRA etc.). However, that's only for things involving money and that I consider valuable (financial accounts, phone numbers, domains). I'm not sure if I'd choose a Canadian regulated social media platform that requires my government ID over a foreign competitor that doesn't if I don't attribute any value to the account / profile.
Let me describe what just went down in Canada. A national catastrophe. If you disagree with my take, I'm happy to provide sources.
We have a vaccine mandate disproportionately harming racial minorities, it's still in place. Why do Black Canadians not get vaccinated? Tuskegee? I don't know. Why do the indigenous? Maybe because the Canadian government has a history of experimenting on them? Ultimately doesn't matter as part of the discussion. We look to our 2 greatest allies, USA and UK. They had no mandates or at least had a roadmap to the end. We didn't have a roadmap and we just unemployed those people? There's legitimate cause for protest.
This article can be my proof that the protest in Ottawa was diverse: https://thepostmillennial.com/jagmeet-singh-faces-backlash-a...
The problem was that the Canadian media labelled the convoy as a bunch of nazis. there was literally only 1 nazi flag and there also just happened to have professional photographers following him? Was he even party of the convoy/protest? That was enough though, the hate convoy was fabricated. There's virtually no nazis and certainly no confederates in Canada. That's not our thing. Hell, the total protest size is estimated well above 100,000 people. Even if Canada has nazis, we don't have that many.
Not once did Trudeau go talk to the protest. He refused because they were all a bunch of nazis with unacceptable views. The ottawa police couldn't do anything against their right to protest and it was big enough that Trudeau couldn't keep ignoring. People demanded action against these nazis before they overthrow the government. Trudeau deployed martial law and arrested the lawful protest. Those illegal nazis looking to overthrow the government!
Trudeau in parliament even got to calling a Jewish MP a nazi for standing with swastikas. He even refused to apologize and doubled down later(a jewish liberal MP called her a nazi as well) Crushing dissent in Canada got denunciation by tons of good left-wing celebrities. Worse yet, the judge who is presiding over the court cases of these protesters is a liberal party candidate back in 2011. Clear conflict of interest.
Right before the Ukraine invasion, Trudeau absolutely abruptly stopped all the name calling over night. He then spoke that there's a great need to start talking to your friends and family who have differing political views. Typical anti echo chamber stuff. This is the day he got briefed about Putin's invasion I am sure. He went from declaring martial law to revoking it in an instant. Baffling everyone.
There's literally a Liberal senator who asserted "Honk Honk" actually stands for Heil Hitler. Absolute crazy person. Meanwhile Jordan peterson was having a heart attack online because he justly saw the tyranny of the government for what it was. The government did crush dissent. We do have political prisoners. This is a current catastrophe that hasn't been fixed at all. Attention went to Ukraine for good reason, but we have a nightmare still in Canada.
This abrupt 180 on the national emergency, Trudeau baffled everyone. People said 'oh the polls are in', Nope. Polls are in, they havent budged. senate was going to vote against(they werent). the various global celebrities calling Trudeau out on his actions. Nope.
Our PM just quietly admitted to it during the Ukraine sanctions speech, in his speech he said, and I paraphrase and taken out of context and ruined in every way, "for the past few weeks putin has been controlling the media"
Putin has controlled the media for decades in Russia. This was an admission of Canadian media. The past few weeks have been the convoy. In fact, international media were fantastic. NYTimes put their political ideology aside and called Trudeau out. Round of applause for the NYtimes. In fact, the international media were generally pretty fair, many didnt agree with the point of the protest, but agreed the protest should continue. They went to the protest because the Canadian media labelled this protest as 100,000 strong nazis looking to overthrow the government. International media saw a fantastic story because Canadians are generally good people, but when they got boots on the ground... that's obviously not what they found.
Putin made it clear: He was invading to denazify Ukraine. Ironically the amazing president of ukraine is jewish. But we heard this just recently didn't we... Who else just called a Jewish person a Nazi? No, Trudeau simply got disinformed to an extreme degree by Russian propaganda. His echo chamber told him everyone was a nazi.
All this BS about nazis, systemic racism and all that crap is Putin. The journalists who have been pushing all this nazi crap are russian agents. In fact, this entire protest was covered by rt.com about 100x more than the CBC covered it. Fox news was like 50x more than the CBC. Other entities covered it about the same. I would bet good money that the RCMP and CSIS are investigating those journalists today.
The world is about to pass laws to ban disinformation because it was clearly weaponized by Russia. However, we have an ongoing injustice here in Canada. I expect monday when parliament resumes Trudeau will offer that apology to Melissa Lantsman. I hope he elaborates on this more.
I'll pick JUST vaccine mandates.
This is what I want to see: everyone that the vaccine is authorized for use in, should be required, under penalty of detention in quarantine bubbles, to be vaccinated.
Exceptions: 1) Medically infirm to the point of specialized, dedicated care which states on a record to the health departments that this individual is medically compromised and ineligible for a wide range of medical treatments, not just this latest vaccine. 2) Individuals too young for current vaccine approval ranges (E.G. emergency use authorized, but not wide approval). 3) Hard core anti-medical religious exemption, full DNR, Do-not-medicate, natural care people. This also includes end of life hospice care (which is a bit more sane IMO) as well as anyone that wants to live like it's 1600.
A reader might note I've made a distinction between people that only refuse the pandemic vaccines and still want all other 'normal' medical care VERSUS those who either already have abnormal medical care or want only non-life-extending (E.G. pain management) care.
The intention here is to promote herd immunity via as prolific application of vaccination as possible while retaining fairness towards edge cases not caused by insanity but merely unfortunate circumstances, and fairness towards legitimate religious exceptions rather than some 'want to feel special' misuse of that tag. Anyone else can be arrested, detained in a drunk / quarantine tank, and while under supervised authority standard medical care applied (I.E. having been found guilty of endangering the public through lack of civil responsibility, incarcerated for... say a month and during that month they'd be given both shots.)
Sorry, complicated issue, I could have gone much more deep as well.
>This is what I want to see: everyone that the vaccine is authorized for use in, should be required, under penalty of detention in quarantine bubbles, to be vaccinated.
I am fully vaccinated but I will not be getting a booster until some very serious improvements in human rights are returned.
Certainly an interesting take. "penalty of detention" means prison.
So you want to remove voluntary and informed consent when it comes to medication under threat of force, coercion and removing free will in a matter of bodily autonomy?
>Exceptions
I did not read your exceptions at all. I have some questions about the first part. Let me define my position a little clearer than above.
The person involved in medical treatment should have legal capacity to give consent; should be situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion, and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.
Do you disagree with this statement? I would really like to know that before we continue.
Dangerous things are either banned, or regulated. This includes operating deadly equipment (drivers licenses) and it includes dress codes in pubic (sanitation is important!). Notably most places only request customers wash their hands but require employees to. That is a distinction made because of the extremely high risk of improper sanitation during food prep versus consumption. Restaurants, including fast food, __should__ be cleaning tables and other common surfaces between uses or at least very frequently to minimize risk.
My position includes enforcement of "herd immunity" (vaccination to the greatest extent possible) as a requirement for participating in society, and then narrowly allows exceptions only where it would not be effective / be greatly riskier for the personal health of the individual than the prevention (thus including the person in the narrow class most protected by the immunity among _others_ rather than a personal contribution to that shared social immunity), OR for those who shun all medical care entirely as a wholistic religious exemption of entirely opting out of that social sector and responsibility as well.
Limiting to only those two classes, plus those for whom the vaccines are not authorized, should hopefully still retain a sufficient group resistance to cause outbreaks to fizzle out, rather than flare up and spread.
Please take the time to read my entire premise (initial reply) and make an attempt to understand the full logic before commenting on it.
So I won't be forced to take the 3rd, 4th, 5th "booster" to remain a part of society.
In the UK we have had no mandates and our health service didn't collapse this winter time. Covid was never a lethal illness for the majority of adults. The issue was that it could cause national health services to collapse from sheer number of cases. Now that is no longer a threat, there is no longer any justification for limits on individual liberty.
It's sort of like a riot shield's effectiveness against metal pipe club weapons, then mining picks, and now axes, all used by a mob. There is still some protection, and it is usually non-harmful to the protected, but the effectiveness is in question and annual training seems to help.
I did, I understood and had a question. You didn't answer my question.
The person involved in medical treatment should have legal capacity to give consent; should be situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion, and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.
Do you disagree with this statement? I would really like to know that before we continue.
It would raise the barrier to entry for misinformation campaigns conducted online and it would presumably make it harder to spam.
I also think that there's a way you could have verification while still maintaining relatively anonymity on these sites (i.e.; I have to verify my identity with Google but I can post under a pseudonym with only Google being able to make the connection back to who I am as a person).
Obviously there would still be situations where you'd want true anonymity but plenty of online forums like Reddit's askScience do their own verification of user credentials. It would be nice if there was a verification process in place with someone like Google where I could sign up for a forum I trust less like Reddit and verify I have a degree without revealing (to random Reddit mods) who I am.
And this already plays out on age restricted sites on the internet. I buy tobacco products online sometimes and I have to verify with my real driver's license who I am. I'd actually prefer some government service that could do that verification on my behalf so I don't have to give my PII to every store I want to make a purchase from.
People will still steal ID's and link them to accounts. And requiring a telephone number for verification is even worse. I signed up for twitter, they asked for a #. I didn't and my account got locked. Two weeks later they had a data breach and leaked those number to the world.
Many services have my information. I don't post my opinions to a single one of those.
Please stop fulfilling the authoritarians wet dreams.
Considering all the edge cases and ill-informed/malicious second-order effects, I don't think it can be implemented correctly. You can never know when a particular group becomes an ostracised target of hate, with every public posting in their history used to smear and attack them, or used as justification to doxx them and have their entire families subjected to a torrent of torment.
> I'd actually prefer some government service that could do that verification on my behalf so I don't have to give my PII to every store I want to make a purchase from.
So something like BankID? Swedes and Danes on HN can probably air their gripes about that system.
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
These are the places where I'm accused of racism (against myself?) or being a Russian. It isn't xenophobic when they do it. In the next breath they'll celebrate the noblesse oblige of their guilt.
These are the places where individual agency is dismissed. My own experience of pulling myself up by my bootstraps is debunked as a fiction. Is there anything more alienating than being told you do not exist?
Yes, I cannot wait to use my real name in these places. What a great opportunity for further harassment from these "inclusive" and "tolerant" people who cannot tolerate dissent or experiences which run counter to their "compassionate" ideologies.
Up is down. Liberal is restrictive. Inclusive is alienating.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...
Any weapon you wish to use can easily be turned against you, and if we've learned anything from history, it's nearly certain that it will be.
There could be better solutions then sending your ID to Facebook. Like limit posting or sharing for accounts that you suspect are bots, apply the terms of service if the post is against that, put limits on new accounts so their posts don't spread.
What I see on FB is people I know share/like dubious shit like "Japan made microwaves oven illegal" , the original "troll" did not put this one my home page, people did not directly sent me that shit, FB decided "let me show this guy that the other guy seen and like this shit article on some other guy page", FB done all the spreading and even if FB had my and all my friends IDs it would not have stopped this stupid shit appeared on my wall (everyone has their real names and birth place, education, family relations setup in FB)