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Digital IDs needed to end 'mob rule' online, says UK security minister
- gaius 8y agoThe most recent online mob I can think of was started by a guy named Jeremy, attacking a girl for wearing a Chinese dress as "cultural appropriation". He didn't want anonymity; he revelled in being known as the instigator, even giving interviews to the press. So I don't think that anonymity is the real root cause of online mobbing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-43947959 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-43947959 Jeremy by the way is an English name of Biblical origin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_(name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_(name)
- weberc2 8y agoI’m curious about why this is being downvoted. It seems relevant afaict.
- zzzcpan 8y agoBecause taking it seriously and arguing with propaganda only legitimizes it. And I'm pretty sure people didn't come here because they think there might be a legitimate reason to restrict and police people online.
- vntok 8y agoPlease don't generalise. I do think there are legitimate reasons to restrict and police people online and I'm certainly not alone. Who ever is?
- yorwba 8y agoHuh? I don't read the GP as advocating for restricting anyone online, even less as propaganda. Did they edit their comment? FWIW, I do support restricting people's ability to communicate online, in particular their ability to spam me. I'm not talking about global censorship, just me personally, and if someone actually likes spam, then they can enjoy it for all I care.
- matt4077 8y agoOne guy willing to attach their name to their mobbing doesn't disprove the almost tautological idea that fewer people would participate in such mobbing if they were all forced to do so with their real identity. That's because right now both that wish to be anonymous and those that don't get to participate, whereas such rules would exclude the former group. Even the event you mention probably depended on many being able to participate without risk, since one guy alone doesn't make for a very convincing 'mob'. There are arguments for anonymity online, and I tend to agree that they outweigh the problems. I think it'd be strategically better to focus on these than try to attack the rather intuitive logic at the core of such calls for ending anonymity.
- toyg 8y ago> fewer people would participate in such mobbing if they were all forced to do so with their real identity. I disagree. Mobbing existed before anonymity; in fact, it was very much the norm -- the concept of "honor" is often tied to public displays of condemnation for the "dishonorable". Publicity makes it harder for people to disagree with what is perceived as the opinion of the majority, as unpalatable and uncivilized as it might be. This is why political votes are secret, among others; or why the Gospels explicitly warn against public displays of faith. Every group of people will have its "dishonorable" enemies, and will always be keen to publicly shame them. Forcing people to attach their public identities to online activity will do nothing to dissuade people who see such actions as a badge of honor, but it will chill the display of dissent from the status quo.
- threeseed 8y agoNot sure this is true though. Mobs existed before because there were so many people that you were effectively an anonymous member of it. Similar to behaviour in protests today. However removing anonymity today would be difference since everyone could see your name and could get you fired, killed etc. Hence the OP is right that you would see less mobs.
- toyg 8y agoNo, the mass dimension is a modern phenomenon. "Mobs" in the past were 20 villagers doing things like burning a witch at the stakes. Everyone knew everyone else, and nobody would speak out for the witch precisely because their identity and reputation would have suffered from it. Removing anonymity will just reduce the possibility to express a dissenting opinion. This is why authoritarian systems the world over have always loved ID cards and the likes.
- cpmouter 8y agoDo we really care about the kind of people who care about "cultural appropriation"? Just don't pay attention to them. http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Just_Don%27t_Look#Lyrics http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Just_Don%27t_Look#Lyrics The same can be said about many, many other "online mobs".
- blattimwind 8y ago> Do we really care about the kind of people who care about "cultural appropriation"? Yes, because not disagreeing is considered assent. Telling people with stupid ideologies that their ideologies are stupid is not something you want to avoid entirely, at the very least to remind folks that they haven't found the One True Ideology. Whether the ideology in question is SJWs/ctrl-left or alt-right... doesn't really matter. Neither of those should dominate the public or wield governmental powers. And to avoid precisely that from happening, you speak out against it.
- marcus_holmes 8y agoIsn't that just feeding the trolls though?
- Viliam1234 8y agoCoordinating "not feeding trolls" on a large scale is very difficult. Also, it is difficult to ignore people who can attack you offline. I think these fanatical students (seems to me they are usually students; students are most susceptible to recruitment in all kinds of cults) constitute pretty much zero danger to me... but they can be quite dangerous to their classmates, so if I had children in university age, I would probably worry a lot. If you told me that when I eat pizza that it is a cultural appropriation, I would just tell you to f.off. But when a student is surrounded by militant classmates, this can lead to bullying. And even worse, when a teacher is a part of some social justice cult. So... not feeding the trolls is sometimes not an option, unless you want to give up on your diploma, and the time and work spent so far studying. Not feeding trolls also assumes that people are mature enough to recognize who is a troll. But there is a continuum between people who sincerely believe that political correctness is simply the usual politeness applied to politically sensitive topics... and people who throw a hissy fit whenever someone disagrees with their latest pseudoscience. Try to make a line somewhere, and people who are under the line but quite close to it are going to object.
- perl4ever 8y agoAmong the more surreal aspects of UK culture that I am aware of (only because of the Internet) are prejudice against people named "Jeremy", and "gingers" (not that there is any connection between the two).
- gaius 8y agoI’m not aware of any particular Jeremy prejudice, I just thing it’s strange that a guy with an English/Hebrew name feels entitled to claim exclusive ownership of Chinese culture. Anyone can wear anything or be called anything in my book.
- taneq 8y agoInstigating or joining a witch hunt is a form of virtue signalling, so online anonymity seems pretty irrelevant. It might stem the tide of individual online harassment but that's not really 'mob rule'.
- Yetanfou 8y agoIn order to save the city we had to destroy it. In order to save freedom of speech we have to curtail it. In order to save democracy we have to put limits on it.
- saas_co_de 8y ago> Describing Silicon Valley billionaires, he said: “The phoniness irritates me - it’s, ‘I’m a hippy with a beanbag and, oh yes, there is my superyacht’. Well, at least he got something right.
- equil 8y agoThis sentiment was quite popular around 2009-2011 with real-name policies, the "nymwars", and what have you. The idea that the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [1] explained the noxious state of online discourse had taken root, and people believed, often in good faith, that peeling back the layers of anonymity from larger communities would combat bad behavior. Both Google+ and Battle.net infamously implemented real name policies during this period to very little discernible effect, and eventually reverted their policies. To this day human group interaction remains challenging to control, with or without authoritarian means. I understand that the intended goal of this policy is likely orthogonal to the argument presented, but it's a surprisingly weak argument in face of all the previous attempts showing the contrary. You can effectively point to South Korea, where they relented on this [2], after the intended effect was shown to be practically insignificant, while simultaneously putting users at increased risk. [1] https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 [2] http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/12/30/2011123001526.html http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/12/30/2011...
- sexydefinesher 8y agoIs there any explanation as for why the british public is so apathetic against the increasing authoritarianism?
- rarec 8y agoMust've thought 1984 was a manual instead of literature. The "stiff upper lip" culture of basically just sucking it up may have a part in it. This thing doesn't immediately affect me or mine, so why fight it?
- toyg 8y agoThe economy is still decent for people at the top, and people at the bottom are constantly fed scapegoats for their state of things (i.e. foreigners). Anti-authoritarianism only flourishes when a significant number of people is fed up with what they perceive as incompetent leadership - at that point, the manners of such leadership start to matter.
- tim333 8y agoI guess, speaking as a Brit, we don't take the tech stuff that seriously. The only thing to actually effect me so far has been their attempts to block torrent search sites which involve me having to fire up a free vpn about once a month. And token efforts to reduce copyright abuse are sort of justified I guess. Re authoritarianism I worry more about the G7s spokesman for Russia. Also I went along to spectate the Brexit court case but parliamentary democracy won that one https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38733090 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38733090
- threeseed 8y agoBecause the UK government is so incompetent right now that I doubt anyone would believe they could pull something like this off. That and of course the predicted drop in tax receipts due to Brexit has basically caused a widespread freeze on IT spending across the government. So a Digital ID has zero chance of being implemented in the next decade or so.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sbhn 8y agoThe bottom line is that some British family owned business is going to win the billion dollar security database tender. Edit: I know that’s not fair, the money will go to some offshore company where it’s a bit harder to account for Edit2: also I think when a politician starts telling us we need increased security, we need to start looking at the private communications for any evidence of bribery
- paul7986 8y agoA digital ID or drivers license that forces you to take a test that schools you on fake news, deep fakes, phishing, ransomware, two way verification and other similar things I think would be a good thing! Also each time you post a comment or video your Identity is attached to it which would make someone think twice about posting a deep fake(if the video is reposted the orginator and the reposter(s) ID is attached) that depicts something harmful to society (president saying going to nuke xyz) or harmful to someone else. For security purposes you’d have to biometrical ID yourself before posting/attaching your identity to it. *if you downvote this .. why is this a bad idea? It’s just an idea I thought after watching deep fakes thinking wow something needs to fight such.
- furi 8y agoThat would make the (largely hypothetical) problem of deepfaked news far far worse. It's the same problem we see with TLS where a green lock just means people's brains turn off. "It must be tied to a real person's ID" is trivial for anybody determined to bypass (they can just steal, forge or make an ID) but when people view it they will see that it's been verified by the government's big brother identity system, so it must be legitimate. It's literally arming the bad guys with the tools to make their fakes look government endorsed.
- paul7986 8y agoYes I understand security concerns thus you are forced to verify yourself via your retina and thumbprints.
- tomjen3 8y ago>saying they would be ordered to clamp down on vile attacks against women on their platforms. Oh that is easy to stop: women are now banned from our platforms. Every government action or law will have unintended results.
- marcus_holmes 8y agoI'm curious why bullying/mobs/trolling/whatever is rampant on Twitter, common on Facebook, but non-existent on LinkedIn. Anyone got any ideas why this is so?
- GekkePrutser 8y agoBecause on LinkedIn everyone is sucking up to prospective employers. That's the one and only reason it exists. Because of this everyone uses their real identity. And because of that it's also the most boring and fake social media platform around.
- billybolton 8y agoThe trolls haven't upped their game yet.
- ghaff 8y agoIt's both pretty tightly tied to real identity and mostly public. Add to that, like it or not, it's heavily used by recruiters, etc. for professional jobs.
- marcus_holmes 8y agoyeah, but don't the recruiters check Twitter/FB profiles too?
- ghaff 8y agoA lot of Twitter handles are anonymous. And, if you're not connected as a friend, you're basically not going to see anything about or from me on Facebook. LinkedIn is definitely the go to place to check people out for professional purposes.
- GekkePrutser 8y agoThey probably do but I guess many people have their profiles set to "Friends only". And on Twitter people don't usually use their real name.
- hliyan 8y agoQuestion (not rhetorical): is it worthwhile to allow anonymous criticism of the state and those in power, while requiring people to stand behind all other types of statements as real named individuals?
- pavel_lishin 8y agoWho decides what constitutes "legitimate" criticism and the state? That line is too hard to draw.
- pasbesoin 8y agoAt the root of much of this, I find "leaders" who call for such things while simultaneously exempting themselves from the same level of scrutiny and accountability. You're a "leader". You, first.