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

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

#101

Post by paganel »

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,…

As a reddit user for 15 years now I would just move to gab (I think that's the name) or whatever other platform there is if they start asking for government IDs.

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

#102

Post by showerst »

Gunax wrote: post #91
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,…

I would prefer just making users pay some fee.

This doesn't really solve any problems, because it just makes trolling/harassment cost a few bucks. It also practically incentivizes commercial shilling since that has an easy to calculate return.

Any amount of money that would make it cost prohibitive to get banned would also kill the userbase.

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

#103

Post by motohagiography »

Faint praise. The article does more to normalize and prime the idea of banning online anonymity with a weak defense than to argue against it. Some abstract principles about discredited freedoms won't stand in the way of progress. The sceptical are not alone.

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

#104

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

echelon wrote: post #92
Larrikin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was a long time user of 4chan and that believed this once before, I now adamantly disagree that total anonymity leads to better discussion and believe that 4chan and the like are ultimately failed experiments. With total anonymity you end up with trolls or people who are just seriously misinformed arguing vigorously. You can spend the time and present arguments to possibly convince an actual reasonable…

You need anonymity with reputational score. Satoshi Nakamoto. Associate anonymous posts with an optional pubkey signing. Have tooling that can filter out bad actor signatures and highlight the ones you care about. Have your interest graph and peer graph suggest new public keys to follow. Identities can remain private.

I'm not aware of any platforms, blogs or other internet entities (accepting public comments) that chose this system. I'm thinking there are reasons for that choice.

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

#105

Post by Kafkish »

majormajor wrote: post #83
Kafkish wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This seems to say a lot about you but not so much about others. You're saying your default opinion is that women wouldn't be good at a technical topic. And that you believe that white people only have two possible opinions coming in to an encounter with a black person: your opinion could be low, or you could be racist. That's a very limited perspective.

You're free to deny reality. Trying to keep your head buried in the sand will not change the fact that there's a sky above you.

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

#106

Post by saddlerustle »

colpabar wrote: post #44
specialist wrote: post #28

No, there is no silver bullet. Yes, banning anonymity is dumb idea. Also, opt-in authenticated identity is necessary. It's ridiculous that bots, trolls, and sockpuppets are given the same esteem and protections as real people. To curtail harassment, nerf the outrage machine (algorithmic newsfeeds) and ad revenue biz models.

> It's ridiculous that bots, trolls, and sockpuppets are given the same esteem and protections as real people. Agreed. I think any talk of the problems of online anonymity should be focused on bots first and foremost. From my understanding, it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users. Can't we go after those instead? I don't really care that real people online can be mean anonymously, because at the end of the d…

> it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users

How to tell someone’s never worked on anti-abuse at scale

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

#108

Post by ydhdbridjnd »

saasaccount2 wrote: post #2

totally agree, cyber-bullying is mostly due to anonymity, and technology is well developed, and hackers find their way to do heinous acts and hide behind, this type of abuse cannot simply be prevented by banning social media, the cause is deep within the society's roots.

Not really on the anonymity front. I worked for an anti bullying children's charity back in the late noughties and we found that online bullying was often a continuation of real life bullying, and that kids who bullied online (and were generally trollish) were the same kids who did it in real life. Anonymity certainly didn't help a lot of the time, but it wasn't the cause.

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

#109

Post by formerly_proven »

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?

I don't think you can generally expect LGBT support from western governments at large.

However, I didn't actually mean the governments themselves with my comment above, but the various christian and puritan lobbying groups.

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

#110

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

majormajor wrote: post #86
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…

Anonymity can enable that but it also enables far nastier things. There are pros and cons. Simply pointing out pros is not enough to win the day.

It should be enough to win the day.

There is nothing other than anonymity than can provide the pro put forth by the OP. On the other hand, the "cons," you are making non-specific reference towards are achievable by any number of strategies and are a common facet of everyday life.

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