Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer • Hacker News Board

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#71

Post by tlholaday » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #66

formerly_proven wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t see removing anonymity doing much other than e.g. hurting LGBT groups online (imagine asking questions as a member of that group in a conservative community and forced to use your real name) Consider that this could be one of the motivations behind the push for things like this.

In all seriousness, do you really think that any current western government is anti-lgbt? Do you have any examples?

Yes.

Search “Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act North Carolina”

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#72

Post by bigjimmyjohnson » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

Why does there need to be one uniform solution? Some sites can be entirely anonymous, some can be pseudononymous, some with real names... some heavily moderated, some lightly moderated... some facilitating one on one conversation, some for small groups, some for the wider public... and so on.

The web need not be homogenous. Omegle, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, hacker news... They can all exist differently and that's fine.

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#73

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

swayvil wrote: post #62

lexapro wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, he has proven that it brings out the absolutely worst.

The freedom to do the worst is also the freedom to do the best. That is an unavoidable universal law. Look at instances where the conversation is forced to respect conventional values. It's death. Conformity and moronic mob-politics becomes the norm. So norm that you forget that there was anything better. (Reddit and Facebook are 2 notorious cases of this.) 4chan is sharp and smart. And infantile and vile. And someti…

[deleted]

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#74

Post by BitwiseFool » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #39

Somewhat tangential to the article, but here's what I would like: A site like reddit, but you have to get your government ID verified when you sign up. You can still pick any alias you want, but mods see your location within, say, 100 miles. Imagine reddit with no bots, banning has consequences, and local subreddits can actually just be people who live there. The painful sign up flow makes that totally unreasonable,…

Isn't this basically what Parler tried to do? They got hacked and the PII of their users was leaked onto the internet and they were derided for collecting so much information.

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#75

Post by onion2k » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

babyblueblanket wrote: post #57

onion2k wrote: post #43

There is one simple, easy way to stop abuse (both online and offline): stop accepting when your peers do it. There are more people who think abusive behavior is bad than there are abusers who think it's good. If all the people who think it's bad call it out when they see it, avoid people who do it, make a point admonishing people who do it, refuse to accept working with people who do it at work, refuse to socialize w…

The definition of abusive behavior is unfortunately ambiguous though. Not everybody agrees to it. That's how you get people claiming folks are too sensitive and other people claiming so and so is an abuser for some more ambiguous circumstance.

That doesn't matter. If everyone just calls out the behavior that they think is abusive then eventually we'll get to a new, lower level of abuse. There'll be some contention where people disagree, but there is already so that doesn't change much.

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#76

Post by BitwiseFool » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

throwaway743 wrote: post #15

Personally, I like not having to tie my identity to my HN account, and I'd like to keep it that way here and elsewhere.

Same here. Besides, what I type here today may not be controversial at all, but who knows how activists will change what society sees as acceptable vs problematic? All it would take is one motivated activist to dig through my comment history and find something to get me cancelled in the future.

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#77

Post by anon22hdjsks » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #39

Somewhat tangential to the article, but here's what I would like: A site like reddit, but you have to get your government ID verified when you sign up. You can still pick any alias you want, but mods see your location within, say, 100 miles. Imagine reddit with no bots, banning has consequences, and local subreddits can actually just be people who live there. The painful sign up flow makes that totally unreasonable,…

Mods are the last people you want to give dox / location data to (especially if you have children).

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#78

Post by showerst » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #74

showerst wrote: post #39

Somewhat tangential to the article, but here's what I would like: A site like reddit, but you have to get your government ID verified when you sign up. You can still pick any alias you want, but mods see your location within, say, 100 miles. Imagine reddit with no bots, banning has consequences, and local subreddits can actually just be people who live there. The painful sign up flow makes that totally unreasonable,…

Isn't this basically what Parler tried to do? They got hacked and the PII of their users was leaked onto the internet and they were derided for collecting so much information.

I suppose, although Parler came at it catering to a very specific and volatile community.

"Don't get hacked and dump PII" is sort of a prerequisite for starting any online business these days, so I don't see that as a huge downside beyond the already comically difficult signup flow. Ideally, ID verification comes from someone like stripe or visa who's core business is handling that data, so the host is only storing a hash and a location.

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#79

Post by wackro » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

woeirua wrote: post #48

The simplest solution here is to require users to present government recognized credentials when signing up for accounts. Users can then create pseudonymous accounts that preserve some notion of anonymity, but when they become abusive the user can then be held accountable in the real world. Any solution here needs to be gated by the courts though, otherwise it would be ripe for abuse in and of itself through doxxing.

I heard a discussion on the radio where a lady was describing the potential use of a third party identity provider for all social media. This would be instead of the government.

If I understood it correctly, the third party would hold your ID etc, and would vouch for you on signup to services. Users would be anonymous/pseudonymous until a warrant was acquired by the police.

A third party would be better IMO than the government. Not sure I like it either way tho. Who is the third party? Breaches would be an issue as the other poster has said. And too much like big brother.

Re: Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

#80

Post by bell-cot » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

Kafkish wrote: post #65

lionkor wrote: post #23

Anonymity is important because it allows you to have discussions purely based on the arguments and opinions, without the bias of who youre talking to. I often find myself having a wonderfully deep discussion with someone online, and when I eventually find out what they look like (etc), I often realize that they dont look as friendly, educated, etc as they are. Humans are really bad at this, and you will put people in…

I just discussed this with a bunch of my friends. If you're having a high level technical exchange with somebody that you don't know, then you find out that that other person is a female, you're really impressed, that a girl will be that good at this very technical topic. If, OTOH, you find out that that other person is a black guy (assuming you're white), you go through one of two reactions: If you're opinion of bla…

My reaction is to say that people should have the choice of being either (1)anonymous or (2)nasty when on-line. Not both. (Non-anonymous and nice obviously being allowed.)

Too bad that seems impossible to effectively implement at scale.