The only way to avoid spam is to actually make a social network for humans, and the only way to do so is to verify each account belongs to a single human. The only way I've found that this can be done is by using passports[0].
The idea that I would give a copy of my passport to a social media company just to sign up, and that the social media company has access to verify the validity of the passport with the issuing government, just feels very wrong to me.
I’m perfectly happy talking to someone without knowing their real name. I just want to be more confident that they’re a unique human, and not just another sock puppet account run by some Russian agent (or evil corporation) trying to change people’s beliefs at scale.
There's almost no time investment in building onlyhumanhub. It's only a few months old (based on the copyright), have effectively a text-only homepage, and account creation which I assume allows you to upload photos of your passport and link your existing social media profiles.
There are so many ways that could go wrong, from this being a phishing attack to this being a well intended project that happens to create a database linking passport IDs to all of a person's social media accounts.
The idea that they may eventually offer a social media platform that doesn't require public use of your real identity is all well and good, but they're still a honeypot for doxing.
Not strictly but Debian, where member inclusion is done through an in person chain of trust process so you have clusters of people who know each other offline as a basis.
Also, most WhatsApp contacts have been exchanged IRL, I presume.
A fake ID is a lot harder to get your hands on than a new email, burner phone, etc.
Yes, this does mean that dual nationals can have two separate human accounts. But it’s still better than an infinite number of accounts, which is the case for social networks right now.