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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

#141

Post by whimsicalism »

Factorium wrote: post #96
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nextdoor has had enormous racism/bigotry problems. They have had to revamp a variety of their interfaces to minimize this problem. It's like they have to do A/B testing to minimize it. Real identity doesn't do anything to slow down the oblivious.

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2&selY... 51% of Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter is committed by about 7% of the US population. This is directly from Government data. There are real biological factors identified for this discrepancy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A

The obvious factor behind this discrepancy is the distribution of resources in the real world, as well as the fact that organized violent drug crime is mostly operated out of black communities (again: poverty).

This allele you've identified as the genetic reason for white superiority is most common among Asian men.

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

#142

Post by whimsicalism »

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…

> 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 day, it's just one person.

Strong disagree in that I think most of the problems people identify with FB are due to the collective actions of mostly real people in conversation.

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

#143

Post by rndgermandude »

Larrikin wrote: post #88
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…

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…

4chan's failure to me has little to do with perceived anonymity, and a lot more to do with the culture of an online community, what is tolerated within that community, where the red lines are, and how this is enforced. And "gamification" plays a role, i.e. virtual online points of some sort, be it "likes", be it "karma", be it "upvotes".

Compare 4chan to HN, which is also open to anybody like 4chan, allows anonymous (or rather pseudonymous) posting, and has a somewhat sizeable community of people posting and many more "lurkers" just reading.

Unlike 4chan however, HN does a reasonable job - in my opinion - of being clear what is allowed and what is not, enforces these community standards quite vigorously most of the time, through moderation not just by moderators but the community (flagging), and generally stops outright abuse and harassment, and more often than not stops trolls and people accidentally starting flame wars. That has to be balanced against not over-banning/over-flagging content, which happens, too. Not everything is perfect in the niche that is HN - nothing ever is - but the contrast to 4chan is quite stark, even to the supposedly more moderate and "sfw" 4chan boards like /g/ (technology).

Gamification is a double edged sword. On one hand, it may encourage people to instead of their actual views post quick quips or hide their true opinions and opt instead to just say what they believe the community wants to hear. On the other hand, in places like 4chan which lack such gamification, you don't have to fear burning your reputation as nobody has a visible reputation, which may encourage people to cross lines as there is no way for the community to sanction such behavior.

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

#145

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

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.

Not all people that use this site will have undergone the same sort of intellectual journey into race as those of us in more diverse areas. True tolerance would be to understand that not all people in the HN demographic come from places like the US that are true melting pots. There was no evidence of racist thinking in the OP's remarks, and you don't have to go about suggesting there was to make the point you're attempting to make.

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

#146

Post by dane-pgp »

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 an interesting alternative, imagine that the site asked you to print out a random number on a piece of paper and (within a 2 hour window, for example) film yourself holding it in front of a building or landmark that you claim is within 100 miles of your home.

You could cover your face during the filming, or temporarily affix the paper to some surface, like a tree, and then upload your video clip to a selection of randomly chosen existing members who would cross-reference your location with Google street view, and try to check that the image isn't a deep fake.

Of course people would eventually start offering a paid service of carrying out this process on behalf of the bot farmers, but the algorithm could demand that your filming location not be somewhere that a lot of people have already used for their recordings, which would push up the cost of someone trying to create multiple identities locally to them.

Also, offering this location spoofing service could be classed as (conspiracy to commit) fraud, and the risks of getting caught by going to a specific location at a specific time as part of a sting operation should be pretty high, and not worth being paid minimum wage for.

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

#147

Post by LocalH »

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…

You make a lot of assumptions regarding people you have never met. Why do you discount the white people who don't have the reactions that you presume they all do?

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

#148

Post by JasonFruit »

slg wrote: post #125
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.

This is troubling logic if we expand it to other areas. For example, what if someone says "Let's ban killing other people"? Is it enough to point out that sometimes killing people saves the lives of other people? Should we outlaw killing in self defense? Should we outlaw killing people who are an imminent threat like active shooters? If you agree that sometimes killing can be justified, does that mean we need to allo…

The conversation (from the MP quoted in the article) started with those cons, so the pros were the necessary response. Our agreement on your point might have been more evident had I been less terse.

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

#149

Post by pixelgeek »

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…

> I think the relevant property is not anonymity, it's accountability.

Indeed. There has been quite a bit of discussion in the UK about the lax sentences given to people posting racist comments on social media. The platforms don't seem to take these issues seriously and the courts don't seem to either.

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

#150

Post by pixelgeek »

vorpalhex wrote: post #132
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.

Back in the 'olden days' you almost always knew the people in your groups and knew the trolls. Heck you sometimes knew who the trolls in other groups were.

Then AOL came and ruined it for everyone. Millions of new people. No-one read the rules and the quality of content went down precipitously.

And that news group apocalypse now seems quaint in comparison to Facebook and Twitter.

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