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

#131

Post by md8z » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

HamburgerEmoji wrote: post #20

footlose_3815 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Moot's legacy sure has been doing the world a lot of favors. You sure we should be referencing his logic?

4chan and the MSM are both despicable slime pits in their own ways, but 4chan is much more honest. If the corporate media decides some subject is taboo, or that some line of inquiry is banned in order to protect advertisers' profit, you'll still be able to find extremely strong signal about those topics on 4chan.

Anonymous sites like Blind and 4chan (and other semi-anonymous sites like Twitter and its clones) seem to have the same problem but in reverse, where everything is overloaded with negativity and creates that strong signal, even if it's unwarranted. There is a reason conspiracy theories, misinformation, racism, and other cynical rhetoric tend to spread so well on those sites. I think Twitter and Blind have improved their moderation recently... but 4chan seems to always be the same cesspool.

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

#132

Post by vorpalhex » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

anyonecancode wrote: post #127

I think the relevant property is not anonymity, it's accountability. The argument against anonymity is that it will make people more accountable, but that's not always true. Rather, it's the way an online community structures itself. For instance, here on HN we have the ability to be anonymous (on a sliding scale -- people can say who they are in their profiles, or be completely anonymous, or somewhere in between, po…

Part of why this works on HN is our small size. I will almost certainly bump into you again on here, and likely have before.

Prisoner's dilemma is altered when it's a repeated trust action.

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

#133

Post by whimsicalism » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:44 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, in parts of Europe certainly and many state governments as well.

Casual homophobia remained "in" in the US until at least 2010, which is not all that long ago.

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

#134

Post by xkcd-sucks » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #76

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.

"Enterprise software is totally fucked and working on it sucks, and b2b sales people are lying sociopaths. I just want to make more money with less effort and don't care about half-baked mission statements"

If I weren't anonymous this could make me unemployable

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

#135

Post by slg » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #99

majormajor wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Simply pointing out pros is not enough to win the day. It's enough to convince vulnerable people who are calling out the misdeeds of the powerful. It might not be enough to sway the powerful who compulsively deploy (Gov/Corp/LEO) revenge on people who call them out.

>It's enough to convince vulnerable people who are calling out the misdeeds of the powerful.

Vulnerable people like the trans community that is often the victim in this type of anonymous social media abuse? Are they allowed to call out the powerful and disproportionately white straight cis men who control social media companies and allow this abuse to continue?

I just find it funny that you are using an argument that is identical to the one used by some of the people you are arguing against.

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

#136

Post by ademup » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #126

bell-cot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Too bad that seems impossible to effectively implement at scale. There are technical solutions to this. The old one was called hashcash, which a predecessor to cryptocurrency. To get an account you would have to do something like $5 in electricity worth of computation one time, which you can do without giving anyone your name. But then if you do something foolish and get banned, it'll cost you another $5 (or howeve…

This just seems like punishing the poor, very much like fines for speeding. "Rich" people get the freedom to do and say what they wish, but the poor must sit still and only convey favorable opinions.

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

#137

Post by batch12 » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:49 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…

This doesn't describe me at all? I am impressed by someone's understanding of a topic and bring no expectations to the table. Not everyone is fixated on race and gender stereotypes. This is a sad lie being pushed by people who want us to stay divided.

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

#138

Post by Telemakhos » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #114

JasonFruit wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the conversation starts with, "Let's ban anonymous accounts!", then enumerating points in favor of anonymous accounts is the right response.

The conversation didn’t start with that. The conversation started with widespread abuse online originating from anonymous accounts. Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity. One reason being it’s extremely expensive to do that if not effectively impossible.

> Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity.

This implies that many communities with anonymity don't face abuse problems, so anonymity is not the root of the problem. Maybe the problem lies in the subject matter that the community handles and the sort of people that attracts.

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

#139

Post by loydb » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

Banning may not be the complete answer, but until we're allowed to shoot them, it will have to do.

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

#140

Post by KingMachiavelli » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #114

JasonFruit wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the conversation starts with, "Let's ban anonymous accounts!", then enumerating points in favor of anonymous accounts is the right response.

The conversation didn’t start with that. The conversation started with widespread abuse online originating from anonymous accounts. Communities without abuse problems never even float the idea of banning anonymity. One reason being it’s extremely expensive to do that if not effectively impossible.

Then don't use those platforms? If you need a community that is going to be prone to abuse problems then make your own platform. Politicians and government offices should know better than to be using a commercial social media as their primary platform especially when it's not even based in your own country.