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What does it mean to "manage" identities? It's not terribly difficult, technically, to enact a real name policy with online identities rooted in the real-world

What does it mean to "manage" identities? It's not terribly difficult, technically, to enact a real name policy with online identities rooted in the real-world chain of trust --- the problem is that when you enact a real name policy, activists scream at you until you rescind it. Without rooting identities in the real world trust chain, what do you have? Proof of work? How does that help against adversaries who are willing to do a lot of work? Reputation systems? Sybil attacks. We know what the right answer is here. We just need to be bold enough to enact it and keep it enacted despite the expected outcry

georgyo 8y ago
I use my real name on the internet, but there are lots of good reasons not to use real names. Like someone reaching out for advise on what to do about a sensitive subject that there are not ready for the rest of the world to know. But that is not the point I'm trying to make. You said it not technically hard to enact a real name policy, but I argue that of the options you said, a real name policy is the by far the hardest, technically speaking. I can simply say I have a real name policy, but who is validating these names. Hire an army of people to get scans of IDs, and then have no users because no one is going to sign up if the barrier to entry is so high. Blizzard and Facebook have a real name policies, but they do no validation. A government could roll out such a program, but the chances of a world wide program are near zero. And such a universal system would bring identify fraud into a new era of awfulness. It's simply not possible to have a real name system that is valid.
pjc50 8y ago
> We just need to be bold enough to enact it and keep it enacted despite the expected outcry In other words, you know it will do real harm to real people, but you don't care about them and don't want to listen. Real names are not sufficient. Plenty of people will publish hate speech in the newspapers under their own byline.
- quotemstr 8y ago
  > In other words, you know it will do real harm to real people, but you don't care about them and don't want to listen That's an uncharitable and emotionally-charged way of saying that you think that an edge case affecting a tiny minority should preclude a policy that makes communities better for everyone. Do you not care about the population at large? The state of discussion on the internet seems to have deteriorated since the major platforms abandoned their real name policies a few years ago. > Plenty of people will publish hate speech in the newspapers under their own byline Ah, so "managing identities" is actually just a euphemism for censorship? People should be free to publish "hate speech" (whatever that means) in newspapers and anywhere else. That's what free speech entails and it's a good thing.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > makes communities better for everyone. Not at all proven, and there's substantial evidence that for certain categories of abuse it makes no difference. > edge case affecting a tiny minority The whole point of equalities law is that you can't inflict things on people simply with the justification that they're a minority; you have to make arguments along the lines of it being necessary, proportionate, and that you've tried to mitigate the harm. > The state of discussion on the internet seems to have deteriorated since the major platforms abandoned their real name policies a few years ago. Usenet people like to date the deterioration of discourse back to ... 1993. Again this is kind of anecdotal and we'd have to define things like "state of discussion" and "deteriorated". > People should be free to publish "hate speech" OK, now you're really going to have to define "state of discussion" and "deteriorated", as well as "makes communities better for everyone", because hate speech is one of the very important things that we're trying to get rid of.
    - quotemstr 8y ago
      Who is the "we" that's trying to get rid of "hate speech"? I'm against censorship of ideas *period". The problem with censorship is that even if started with the best of intentions, it ends up being plain suppression of whatever ideas are inconvenient for the censors. It's been that way throughout history. Censorship is always being justified as being done in the name of someone's safey. I take it you're the kind of person who thinks a good community is one free of ideas that make you uncomfortable.

georgyo 8y ago

I use my real name on the internet, but there are lots of good reasons not to use real names. Like someone reaching out for advise on what to do about a sensitive subject that there are not ready for the rest of the world to know. But that is not the point I'm trying to make. You said it not technically hard to enact a real name policy, but I argue that of the options you said, a real name policy is the by far the hardest, technically speaking. I can simply say I have a real name policy, but who is validating these names. Hire an army of people to get scans of IDs, and then have no users because no one is going to sign up if the barrier to entry is so high. Blizzard and Facebook have a real name policies, but they do no validation. A government could roll out such a program, but the chances of a world wide program are near zero. And such a universal system would bring identify fraud into a new era of awfulness. It's simply not possible to have a real name system that is valid.

pjc50 8y ago

> We just need to be bold enough to enact it and keep it enacted despite the expected outcry In other words, you know it will do real harm to real people, but you don't care about them and don't want to listen. Real names are not sufficient. Plenty of people will publish hate speech in the newspapers under their own byline.

quotemstr 8y ago
> In other words, you know it will do real harm to real people, but you don't care about them and don't want to listen That's an uncharitable and emotionally-charged way of saying that you think that an edge case affecting a tiny minority should preclude a policy that makes communities better for everyone. Do you not care about the population at large? The state of discussion on the internet seems to have deteriorated since the major platforms abandoned their real name policies a few years ago. > Plenty of people will publish hate speech in the newspapers under their own byline Ah, so "managing identities" is actually just a euphemism for censorship? People should be free to publish "hate speech" (whatever that means) in newspapers and anywhere else. That's what free speech entails and it's a good thing.
- pjc50 8y ago
  > makes communities better for everyone. Not at all proven, and there's substantial evidence that for certain categories of abuse it makes no difference. > edge case affecting a tiny minority The whole point of equalities law is that you can't inflict things on people simply with the justification that they're a minority; you have to make arguments along the lines of it being necessary, proportionate, and that you've tried to mitigate the harm. > The state of discussion on the internet seems to have deteriorated since the major platforms abandoned their real name policies a few years ago. Usenet people like to date the deterioration of discourse back to ... 1993. Again this is kind of anecdotal and we'd have to define things like "state of discussion" and "deteriorated". > People should be free to publish "hate speech" OK, now you're really going to have to define "state of discussion" and "deteriorated", as well as "makes communities better for everyone", because hate speech is one of the very important things that we're trying to get rid of.
  - quotemstr 8y ago
    Who is the "we" that's trying to get rid of "hate speech"? I'm against censorship of ideas *period". The problem with censorship is that even if started with the best of intentions, it ends up being plain suppression of whatever ideas are inconvenient for the censors. It's been that way throughout history. Censorship is always being justified as being done in the name of someone's safey. I take it you're the kind of person who thinks a good community is one free of ideas that make you uncomfortable.