Facebook, Weibo and other smaller platforms around the world prove that's not going to happen.
(Too) Many people are still going to be trash even with their actual identity out in the open.
So just leave the Internet be, for the love of everything.
The principle driver of antisocial behaviour online seems to be impunity, immunity, and/or disinhibition. Anonymity and/or pseudonymity are related, but nowhere near identical.
As Yonatan Zunger, chief architect of Google+ (and now an ex-Googler) pointed out, compulsory identification amplifies rather than removes power relationships. This is his principle (and IMO devastating) response to David Brin's Transparent Society argument. Minorities and the disempowered obliged to identify themselves lose even more power in the bargain.
What empowers abuse is the ability to inflict harm without perception of risk, whether that perception is accurate or not. Disinhibition reduces perception whilst overall risk remains high. (The concept is captured in the word "assassin", deriving from the Arabic, hashīshīn, referencing hashhish --- assassins had reduced inhibitions through pharmaceutical influence.) Legal immunity, the cover of a crowd, operating extrajurisdictionally, cover of a state or other significant actor, or simple mass delusions can all provide the reality or appearance of impunity.
Mandating identity itself creates new avenues for abuse, including the revoking of official credentials, bureaucratic incompetence, bribery, and the potential of a "permanent archive" of all accesses (already substantially present through numerous mechanisms) which can be mined at arbitrary future dates, but as-yet unknown entities with as-yet unknown motives.
I'll note that I'm one of numerous reasonably-well-know pseudonymous HN members.
Fixed that for you. There might be young readers here who haven't verified their ages.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180903205908/https://plus.goog...
At the heart of his argument:
In practice, the forced revelation of information makes individual privilege and power more important. When everyone has to play with their cards on the table, so to speak, then people who feel like they can be themselves without consequence do so freely -- these generally being people with support groups of like-minded people, and who are neither economically nor physically vulnerable. People who are more vulnerable to consequences use concealment as a method of protection: it makes it possible to speak freely about controversial subjects, or even about any subjects, without fear of harassment.
(A classic experiment which you can easily replicate is to change your profile photo to that of a young woman for a few weeks. Change nothing else, even your name, and see what happens to your interaction pattern. I've seen quite a few people run this test and the results are, shall we say, quite visible)
GamerGate is one example after another of why transparency has asymmetric effects. The worst-case consequence for members of the mobs is fairly minimal: they won't face social ostracism by their friends (who after all, support them), they are highly unlikely to be placed in any physical danger (the police will protect them), and their jobs are not likely to be affected either -- and if they are, they can find others. Conversely, the threats against women in the field were physical and real, and (as you'll see if you ever experience the real ability of local and federal law enforcement to deal with harassment and threat cases, for manifold reasons) there is reason to believe that they do not have access to adequate police protection.
(I'd mentioned the G+ link a few times in earlier HN comments. HN's Algolia search is one of the secret strengths of HN, and is a chief reason I comment here as extensively as I do: I can often find earlier mentions of some point and reference or expand, occasionally correct, those.)
(Zunger and I apparently each believe firmly in paragraph-long parenthetical digressions.)
Original submitted to the queue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27858439
But in many cases, there's no reasonable way to accomodate identity / credential / characteristic assertion into data flows (e.g., commandline tools, proxies).
I don't think anybody is arguing that it will reduce all negative activity, just some.
Seems like it's either a data breach waiting to happen or makes it much easier for the worst to dox and target people.
I think the pro-real-names position would argue that it is net negative for society for people to have this ability, we should only be saying aloud what we are willing to put our reputations behind.
I don’t agree with this position, but afaik that’s the position.
But, yeah, there are exceptions and corner cases to everything. I believe the fundamental idea is that "real" life didn't used to be like that, nor is it today. You just don't see the stuff you see online happening at the corner store. And the difference is that it's people you might see again, or can call the police on, or just recognise as fellow humans.
The problem of anonymity sometimes being required also isn't entirely new. There have long been guarantees (or attempts at such) of anonymity for situations where the need for it was generally acknowledged. In one such case, the organisation even adopted it as their name: Alcoholics Anonymous.
The people doing the harrasment do so under their own names.
people would avoid getting mental help, support groups, religion questions, sexual health, etc if they worried it would be easy to be exposed.
As far as I know, this hasn't been confirmed by anyone other than the dev themself yet. The personal information is also not in the archive, so someone (4chan staff or archive staff) did their job. We'll have to wait and see for the truth of that case, if it ever comes to light.
However I also agree with gp(?) swatting and similar is a problem.
I've experienced these things from internet things - resulted in knocks on the door, 'certified letters' - and pics of my house posted online with people on said blog asking others to drive by and honk.. I'm talking three separate incidents by two or three different people for different reasons - all from internet.
luckily for us it was more nerve racking that people were trying these things and nothing aside from the knocks became an issue - well one of them cost me a business relationship now that I think about it.
Mmm. In some cases terribly dangerous things to their health, like being gay in a country that forbids it. Or criticising a government that forbids it. Or saying something that only becomes illegal or publicly reprehensible after the fact.
The real issue here is the dedicated toxic users: sites like 4chan and Kiwifarm for example. Those groups are typically responsible for the real damage we see on the internet, and there's likely no way for us to ever flush them out. It's a cat-and-mouse game that cannot be won, only indefinitely postponed (which is a victory in their books).
from ddos attacks to the 4chan party van - these things can escalate quickly beyond control and have real world consequences. I've seen it actually happen more than once.
One could argue that they shouldn't be and that's maybe a separate conversation, but for example, right now, if someone defames me in person, I can sue them and if they defame me on the internet under anonymity, and I don't think I can (yes they can be anonymous in person but I think it's much more difficult).
Yes, it's probably a separate conversation, but I don't think we should give these bad laws more teeth.
> Facebook, Weibo and other smaller platforms around the world prove that's not going to happen.
I don't think it's worth taking the entities' arguments seriously when linking real identities also just happens to make them a lot of money. It's clearly just a smokescreen for their true monetary intentions.
This is what shocked the hell out of me as older Gen X and Boomers got into Facebook.
I remember one instance I saw where there was quite a lot of nastiness regarding a series of fights that broke out on a cruise ship off of Australia. Someone involved in it posted a video that his father then shared on Facebook. Then some dude starts posting all these vile racist comments (apparently anti-Lebanese racism is a big problem there) under it. REAL NAME. Basically calling a whole ethnic group criminals on the page of someone whose own son was quite possibly in danger.
I got... curious. I clicked on Racist Dude's profile. Sure enough everything was set to public. He had pictures of his kids. Their names too. Then I got more curious. Less than 5 minutes on Google and I knew what extracurricular activities they were involved in and when they were likely to be there. I felt a little sick at how easy it was to -- can you even call it doxxing when it all hanging out like that?? Anyway, I kept my mouth shut, logged out, tuned out, dropped out.
I still wonder what Racist Dude's best case scenario was there. Even if his vile opinions were 100% true... congratulations on insulting a large family of criminals while exposing everything about yourself?? It boggles the mind. Don't ever try to steelman the ravings of a psychopath.
real name, public profile - showed she was a 10 year firefighter in previous town.
I mean - how dumb on top of overly crass can someone be in a public forum? Mind blown that day - and it's not the only case I'm sure there are many every day on the interweb.
Even people who smoke joints are more surreptitious than racists.
As for authenticating publishers, I think HTTPS is a terrific idea. If some don't want to sign their content, fine. I'll adjust my esteem for them accordingly.