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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

It's annoying, but what other accessible solutions are there to avoid mass creation of "fake" accounts?

I get it, it's super easy to create Twitter bots and spread disinformation, etc. However, that's a problem with social media that we're discovering now (after a decade and a half or so) and the companies need to think about it, not just implement a solution that compromises user privacy because they have leverage.

These cos. copyright all user created information. So they want to make money from it and want credit for good content. However, want to reduce liabilities that arise from content created by malicious actors. Can't have the cake and eat it too.

Previously users were just anonymous with all consequences that entailed. But even today I don't really think the spreading of disinformation is a large problem and users just do that themselves often enough. Information you get today is probably still more accurate compared to times where every info was distributed through news papers.

You’re right in a way. However, newspapers have to have all stakeholders in on it: politicians, big businesses (aka advertisers), readers (trust factor) and their own reputation (journalists, etc).

With bots, you can really be a nuisance with a little bit of effort.

Micropayments. $5 bucks to create an account, non-refundable (Bitcoin accepted). Or you can provide your phone number, your choice.

$5 is not micro. 5¢ is.

Then let these companies guarantee that its one-time request and it will not be used for pushing anything else.

Just like FB promised phone numbers were only going to be used for 2FA?

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-critici...

What guarantee could they possibly offer which we would believe? Of course they will exploit any information they can convince us to hand over.

What is a "fake" account? One without a real name? The extra ones, when a person decides to create more than one?

Spam accounts.

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