Other account types should really have a verified identity imo. It would drastically limit the amount of abuse.
People happily spout abuse under their real name on Facebook. Seems very naive to think preventing anonymity would curb it as much as you think.
If you get rid of the main propagators, other users will have very little of this type of content to engage with in the first place, and it WILL limit the amount of inspiration material other users will be exposed to. We only have this problem because of the easy access to social media. It used to be dubious corners on internet forums and newsgroups no one was interested in, but now everyone is exposed to all this grotesque filth.
Many such accounts main purpose is, very conspicuously, to spread misinformation, and as such there is no real reason why they should be on Facebook in the first place.
I support anonymity when necessary, but as history has clearly shown, limitless anonymity will be abused by bad actors. If there are no limits in place, then bad actors will be able to drown us in a flood of disinformation – this will, as is somewhat currently the case, allow conspiracy theorists to control the flow of information more easily. Repeatedly disproven claims can be repeated in all eternity, and we will never move these people's understanding.
Fact checking will not catch everything, unfortunately. Currently the AI systems is not fast enough to tag things that has already been fact checked, lacks context, or is just manipulative. There are consistent ways to post content and behave that does not directly spread misinformation, but when looked at as a whole, is, actually very clearly intended to manipulate people with misinformation.
So, don't reject things you don't understand so quickly.
> we only have this problem because of the easy access to social media. It used to be dubious corners on internet forums and newsgroups no one was interested in
As in, everything is kinda fine, but some people are just evil for unknown reasons and spread the lie that everything is not fine, and infect others with it?
Here's what I think is a bit more realistic, and notice how stripping people who already have no privilege of the ability to communicate with each other safe from persecution sounds in that context.
> "People are angry, frightened, desperate. This is actually pre-Trump. 40 years of neoliberalism have left the victims of this assault angry, resentful, isolated, contemptuous of government. It's in Europe, it's in the United States, you see it everywhere.
> That's fertile territory for demagogues who can say "I can save you, follow me." It's also fertile territory for conspiracy theories. People want some understanding of what's happening; they're not getting it from the media, they're not getting it from the intellectual classes, they're certainly not getting it from the government. So they search around for something that'll explain it. Why is this happening to us? That's the kind of situation in which you do get conspiracy theories. [..] When you're living in an intellectual environment in which there are no answers, no coherent answers available, you're suffering, you don't see why, you turn to, you grasp on to something.
[..]
> It's happening all over, and I think you can trace a good deal of it to the effects of neoliberalism. It had a goal, remember: the goal of neoliberalism was the transfer decisions, authority, away from the public to the hands of private power, and to atomize the population. You'll recall Margaret Thatcher, there is no society, just individuals tossed out into the market that somehow survive for themselves.
[..]
> The first acts, first acts, that both Thatcher and Reagan carried out was to demolish labour unions. First move, [in] both cases. Reagan went as far as authorizing scabs, you know, strike-breakers. Illegal in every country except, at times, South Africa. Did it right away. The labour unions had been smashed in both countries. Why? Well, it's one of the very few ways in which people can organize to protect themselves, so we've got to get rid of them. Eliminate public schools, but do it by underfunding, don't give enough funding so they don't work, then support private schools as an alternative. All throughout the society, eliminate the means for people to organize, act collectively, make decisions. Transferred into the hands of private power. And the results are predictable and perfectly plain.
-- Noam Chomsky
Erich Fromm pointed that out as early as the 1950s that when people have no real part in the decision-making, their thinking becomes "kinda empty and stupid". How could it not? A muscle must atrophy if you fixate it. If you use incompetence as an excuse to strip people of even more agency, you get even worse outcomes.
>So, don't reject things you don't understand so quickly.
I actively engage and create conspiracy theories on anonymous accounts for fun and to be silly online
So, don't reject things you don't understand so quickly.