10 ms·

Anonymity on the Internet Must Be Protected (1995)

146 points by stareatgoats 8y ago

malvosenior 8y ago
> Freedom of expression must be allowed. With this freedom comes all sorts of problems, but these types of problems are not unique to the internet. Unpopular speech is a necessary consequence of free speech and it was decided long ago, during the drafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that the advantages of free speech outweigh the disadvantages. It seems as if there are a growing number of people that no longer believe this statement. It's unfortunate and I never thought I would see free speech be devalued (in the US), but I regularly see calls to restrict speech. I agree with this paper that anonymity must be protected, but I worry that current and future generations will continue to move away from these principles in the name of inclusion.
- duckMuppet 8y ago
  Using any of the big tech firms, they are actively moving against freedom or anonymity on the net, specifically the web.. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/411002-leaked-presentation-shows-googles-struggle-to-juggle-free-speech-with https://thehill.com/policy/technology/411002-leaked-presenta...
  - duckMuppet 8y ago
    And a great example.. Look above, comments from Josh Cole... bots control the internet.. only regulation, govt censorship, and censorship by tech companies can save the uneducated, unwashed masses which could never understand or be left to make their own decisions with regard to the web and information contained therein.. I always get a chuckle from those who have such arrogance and avarice, that only the govt can fix societal ills. It's horrifying. Experts...
    - JoshCole 8y ago
      I did not say bots control the internet. I did not say that only regulation can deal with the problem. I did not say tech censorship is the only way to save the uneducated. I did not say the unwashed massed could never understand anything. Please don't lie about what I said. I said that the argument against, written in 1995, does not reflect the reality of the day. A reality which is producing said regulation and policy change, right now, already, in California. I'm talking about things that happened. I said that this topic wasn't accurate for modern day - that the speed at which technology has progressed has left this post dramatically out of date. Maybe you've forgotten, but Facebook and Twitter didn't even exist in 1995. Back then the internet was far more decentralized.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    > The “utopian principles of free speech,” as Google describes it, are now being compromised by bad actors and difficult situations. It's funny that Google would frame it like that, because here is an article from 1995 clearly stating that you can expect trolling to come from freedom of speech. This was a known issue with the internet from the get go. It's just that since society has become ultra-political that points of view from "the other side" has gone from being obnoxious to being something that must be wiped off the face of the earth, by force if necessary.
- cft 8y ago
  We live in a different country now. Humanities programs did their jobs
  - stareatgoats 8y ago
    Not sure what you mean. Care to elaborate?
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      I'm guessing, but I suspect that cft means that humanities programs (at universities) produced people who do not value freedom of speech (or, slightly more charitably, who value other things more, such as preventing speech that offends or triggers people). Presuming that I understood cft's point, I'm not sure I buy it. True, some of the humanities people seem less committed to free speech than one would wish. But they are hardly the first to be so. Personally, I'm not sure that there are more voices in favor of censorship than there ever have been. It' may just be that, like every other viewpoint, those calling for it can get really loud in their own echo chamber...
- jfrankamp 8y ago
  I think the 'marketplace of ideas' at least insofar as embodied in various internet outlets is what is failing and causing people to think that some speech is bad and should go away, due to the bullshit asymmetry principle and successful personal-hate targeting campaigns. During the founding of this country we probably had trolls too, but its easier to regain a pleasant town square when the troll has to directly, physically, face the consequences of his free speech.
  - x220 8y ago
    >troll has to directly, physically, face the consequences of his free speech That's not free speech.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      ??? I'm not trying to get in the middle of your guys' argument, but I have a serious question. Why does a troll being anonymous or public, make his speech any more, or less, free? (Assuming that soldiers or police, or Saudi Intelligence Agents, aren't coming to drag said troll away.)
    - anexprogrammer 8y ago
      That is exactly free speech. A right to express an unsavoury view without the system punishing you. Never gave you a right not to be ignored by your neighbours, or not banned from the bar, or not having others nudge their friends to make sure they notice and avoid, etc. Free speech almost always came with consequences until the internet age.
      - sverige 8y ago
        Reminds me of a New York comedian I heard who said something like, "I discovered that in the South, guys don't give any warning before they punch you." It is like that where I grew up in the Midwest, too. Knowing that there will likely be immediate physical consequences for inflammatory speech is a great way to limit that kind of behavior. Unless, of course, it's Saturday night and you're mildly drunk and looking for a fight.
- ip26 8y ago
  When "speech" includes dox'ing, life-ruining harassment, Russian propagandists, etc, perhaps we conclude that "speech" does have shades of grey after all. Just as we already decided long ago, not long after drafting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, when we determined that it was not OK to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, and that sharing state secrets with the enemy, while technically a form of "speech", was still treason.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    You're mixing several things. Threats and legitimate harassment are illegal in the US. No further action needed there. Just call the police if you're in danger. Platforms are legally obligated to work with the authorities and remove illegal content. "Russian propagandists", is a partisan issue and definitely something that free speech should help protect. I'd say this strikes at the heart of the issue actually. People can accuse those they disagree with of being "Russian" or "bots" then get them censored. Free speech stops this from happening.
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > "Russian propagandists", is a partisan issue It's not. No party in the U.S., or in any country, supports propaganda from foreign powers, and there's not much debate whether it exists; evidence of their activities is deep and wide. The Russians wish it was partisan. There may be debate over which things on the Internet are the products of Russian propaganda, but that's the nature of effective propaganda - only the crappy stuff is obvious, and the effective propagandists want everyone arguing with each other.
      - rhacker 8y ago
        But are you sure about that? https://news.gallup.com/poll/237137/republicans-positive-relations-russia.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/237137/republicans-positive-rel... That is the raw data.
      - kodablah 8y ago
        The (partisan) debate is whether it matters or has/had any meaningful influence, especially compared to the societal costs that come out of any attempt to "fix" the problem. They are the new terrorists, druggies, communists, insert-generational-bad-guy-to-legislate-against-here, etc.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  Even more inexplicably, calls to eliminate free speech on the internet are usually advanced by the people who actually need it the most.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  Back when I had the freedom (or naivety and luck) to discuss far more controversial topics, I found that everyone wanted to ban free speech. Normally they would come up with some justification of why the particular speech doesn't count and claim they did stand for free speech and how dare I say that $controversial_topic dare count as a form of speech. While some people had far wider definitions of what doesn't count than others, I found a topic that they all agreed upon. I would even go as far to suggest you would probably agree with them, at least for the most common form of speech I saw people wanting to ban. Think of the worst image you can that someone could share or possess. Once we agree that some speech can be banned, or even that we can just declare certain things don't count as speech, we set the precedent that limits on free speech are acceptable.
middleclick 8y ago
I particularly liked this line: > React to the anonymous information unemotionally. Abusive posters will be encouraged further if they get irrationally irate responses. Sometimes the most effective response is silence. For every case of abuse, there are more cases of good use of a service and we should focus on those and not let the malicious ones become the loudest.
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  Yup, there's a reason one of the internet rules of yore was "Don't feed the trolls"
- jancsika 8y ago
  Got it. Now your anonymously accessible forum greets newcomers with the most abusive, disgusting posts imaginable sprinkled with the occasional post of an idealistic cypherpunk who abides by the dictum, "Don't feed the trolls." Predictably, the forum is frequented by no one outside of a handful of idealistic cypherpunks and problem even fewer trolls (because it's cheap to saturate a forum with the most vile, disgusting content).
  - sbarker 8y ago
    4chan does ok
    - sleepybrett 8y ago
      no it doesn't.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - sincerely 8y ago
        ...doesn't it?
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
JoshCole 8y ago
> However, a small minority of people who use anonymity servers are sociopaths who are attracted by the ease with which they can avoid responsibility and accountability for their actions. Yeah. No. This argument against is old enough that it is now a straw man. There are known state-level actors actively pushing propaganda through the internet. There are companies founded with the express purpose of providing influence in exchange for money. There are companies founded with the express purpose of providing bot accounts to make it seem as if a person is more popular than they are. There is an industry and state level actors abusing anonymity online to shift discourse, with real life consequences more severe than death having already resulted. It isn't unreasonable to suppose that it is possible that millions of people will die as a consequence of some of the manipulations which has already occurred, given UN projections regarding the effect of climate change. We accelerate in progression as we progress. 1995 is a lifetime ago. You might as well link Plato. Recent google slides which made it to Hacker News frontpage has a slide that put the estimate of bot traffic on the internet near 30% of all traffic. Taxes can be great; taxes without representation aren't. Anonymity can be great; anonymity for people with hostile motives who influence things which do not relate to themselves are not. Have a little subtlety. Edit: I'm getting downvoted. Go watch Facebook testimony to congress and similar things in which their is admission of acts as vile as extremist groups being intentionally provoked into armed conflict being performed on online platform. Go read about the IRA and probes into Russian influence on social media. Stop being so ignorant, Hacker News. I get that you filter bubble out political talk, but in case you missed it, there is an actual reason behind why California is moving forward with a law to ban bots which don't confess to being a bot and similar laws designed to curtail these influence campaigns. Its not that legislators are insane.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  I am commenting with a pseudonym on this website and I'm sure I hold many views which you would attribute to "bots". I am however a real person and not even Russian! Most of the people who you disagree with are the same, you must accept that.
  - robotrout 8y ago
jumelles 8y ago
Wow, over twenty years old. Prescient.
pjc50 8y ago
The article is absolutely correct that there are lots of good uses for protecting anonymity or pseudonmity - that's what we fought the "real names" war for, after all. Moderation is also vital to making a space usable. Enforcing real names is not a moderation policy in and of itself - people are perfectly willing to post hate speech under their own name, including in national newspapers. Where these intersect is that it's much easier to moderate if you can ban someone in a way that they stay banned.

146 points by stareatgoats 8y ago

> Freedom of expression must be allowed. With this freedom comes all sorts of problems, but these types of problems are not unique to the internet. Unpopular speech is a necessary consequence of free speech and it was decided long ago, during the drafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that the advantages of free speech outweigh the disadvantages. It seems as if there are a growing number of people that no longer believe this statement. It's unfortunate and I never thought I would see free speech be devalued (in the US), but I regularly see calls to restrict speech. I agree with this paper that anonymity must be protected, but I worry that current and future generations will continue to move away from these principles in the name of inclusion.

duckMuppet 8y ago
Using any of the big tech firms, they are actively moving against freedom or anonymity on the net, specifically the web.. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/411002-leaked-presentation-shows-googles-struggle-to-juggle-free-speech-with https://thehill.com/policy/technology/411002-leaked-presenta...
- duckMuppet 8y ago
  And a great example.. Look above, comments from Josh Cole... bots control the internet.. only regulation, govt censorship, and censorship by tech companies can save the uneducated, unwashed masses which could never understand or be left to make their own decisions with regard to the web and information contained therein.. I always get a chuckle from those who have such arrogance and avarice, that only the govt can fix societal ills. It's horrifying. Experts...
  - JoshCole 8y ago
    I did not say bots control the internet. I did not say that only regulation can deal with the problem. I did not say tech censorship is the only way to save the uneducated. I did not say the unwashed massed could never understand anything. Please don't lie about what I said. I said that the argument against, written in 1995, does not reflect the reality of the day. A reality which is producing said regulation and policy change, right now, already, in California. I'm talking about things that happened. I said that this topic wasn't accurate for modern day - that the speed at which technology has progressed has left this post dramatically out of date. Maybe you've forgotten, but Facebook and Twitter didn't even exist in 1995. Back then the internet was far more decentralized.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  > The “utopian principles of free speech,” as Google describes it, are now being compromised by bad actors and difficult situations. It's funny that Google would frame it like that, because here is an article from 1995 clearly stating that you can expect trolling to come from freedom of speech. This was a known issue with the internet from the get go. It's just that since society has become ultra-political that points of view from "the other side" has gone from being obnoxious to being something that must be wiped off the face of the earth, by force if necessary.
cft 8y ago
We live in a different country now. Humanities programs did their jobs
- stareatgoats 8y ago
  Not sure what you mean. Care to elaborate?
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    I'm guessing, but I suspect that cft means that humanities programs (at universities) produced people who do not value freedom of speech (or, slightly more charitably, who value other things more, such as preventing speech that offends or triggers people). Presuming that I understood cft's point, I'm not sure I buy it. True, some of the humanities people seem less committed to free speech than one would wish. But they are hardly the first to be so. Personally, I'm not sure that there are more voices in favor of censorship than there ever have been. It' may just be that, like every other viewpoint, those calling for it can get really loud in their own echo chamber...
jfrankamp 8y ago
I think the 'marketplace of ideas' at least insofar as embodied in various internet outlets is what is failing and causing people to think that some speech is bad and should go away, due to the bullshit asymmetry principle and successful personal-hate targeting campaigns. During the founding of this country we probably had trolls too, but its easier to regain a pleasant town square when the troll has to directly, physically, face the consequences of his free speech.
- x220 8y ago
  >troll has to directly, physically, face the consequences of his free speech That's not free speech.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    ??? I'm not trying to get in the middle of your guys' argument, but I have a serious question. Why does a troll being anonymous or public, make his speech any more, or less, free? (Assuming that soldiers or police, or Saudi Intelligence Agents, aren't coming to drag said troll away.)
  - anexprogrammer 8y ago
    That is exactly free speech. A right to express an unsavoury view without the system punishing you. Never gave you a right not to be ignored by your neighbours, or not banned from the bar, or not having others nudge their friends to make sure they notice and avoid, etc. Free speech almost always came with consequences until the internet age.
    - sverige 8y ago
      Reminds me of a New York comedian I heard who said something like, "I discovered that in the South, guys don't give any warning before they punch you." It is like that where I grew up in the Midwest, too. Knowing that there will likely be immediate physical consequences for inflammatory speech is a great way to limit that kind of behavior. Unless, of course, it's Saturday night and you're mildly drunk and looking for a fight.
ip26 8y ago
When "speech" includes dox'ing, life-ruining harassment, Russian propagandists, etc, perhaps we conclude that "speech" does have shades of grey after all. Just as we already decided long ago, not long after drafting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, when we determined that it was not OK to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, and that sharing state secrets with the enemy, while technically a form of "speech", was still treason.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  You're mixing several things. Threats and legitimate harassment are illegal in the US. No further action needed there. Just call the police if you're in danger. Platforms are legally obligated to work with the authorities and remove illegal content. "Russian propagandists", is a partisan issue and definitely something that free speech should help protect. I'd say this strikes at the heart of the issue actually. People can accuse those they disagree with of being "Russian" or "bots" then get them censored. Free speech stops this from happening.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > "Russian propagandists", is a partisan issue It's not. No party in the U.S., or in any country, supports propaganda from foreign powers, and there's not much debate whether it exists; evidence of their activities is deep and wide. The Russians wish it was partisan. There may be debate over which things on the Internet are the products of Russian propaganda, but that's the nature of effective propaganda - only the crappy stuff is obvious, and the effective propagandists want everyone arguing with each other.
    - rhacker 8y ago
      But are you sure about that? https://news.gallup.com/poll/237137/republicans-positive-relations-russia.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/237137/republicans-positive-rel... That is the raw data.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      The (partisan) debate is whether it matters or has/had any meaningful influence, especially compared to the societal costs that come out of any attempt to "fix" the problem. They are the new terrorists, druggies, communists, insert-generational-bad-guy-to-legislate-against-here, etc.
commandlinefan 8y ago
Even more inexplicably, calls to eliminate free speech on the internet are usually advanced by the people who actually need it the most.
PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
Back when I had the freedom (or naivety and luck) to discuss far more controversial topics, I found that everyone wanted to ban free speech. Normally they would come up with some justification of why the particular speech doesn't count and claim they did stand for free speech and how dare I say that $controversial_topic dare count as a form of speech. While some people had far wider definitions of what doesn't count than others, I found a topic that they all agreed upon. I would even go as far to suggest you would probably agree with them, at least for the most common form of speech I saw people wanting to ban. Think of the worst image you can that someone could share or possess. Once we agree that some speech can be banned, or even that we can just declare certain things don't count as speech, we set the precedent that limits on free speech are acceptable.

middleclick 8y ago

I particularly liked this line: > React to the anonymous information unemotionally. Abusive posters will be encouraged further if they get irrationally irate responses. Sometimes the most effective response is silence. For every case of abuse, there are more cases of good use of a service and we should focus on those and not let the malicious ones become the loudest.

tomatotomato37 8y ago
Yup, there's a reason one of the internet rules of yore was "Don't feed the trolls"
jancsika 8y ago
Got it. Now your anonymously accessible forum greets newcomers with the most abusive, disgusting posts imaginable sprinkled with the occasional post of an idealistic cypherpunk who abides by the dictum, "Don't feed the trolls." Predictably, the forum is frequented by no one outside of a handful of idealistic cypherpunks and problem even fewer trolls (because it's cheap to saturate a forum with the most vile, disgusting content).
- sbarker 8y ago
  4chan does ok
  - sleepybrett 8y ago
    no it doesn't.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - sincerely 8y ago
      ...doesn't it?
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago

JoshCole 8y ago

> However, a small minority of people who use anonymity servers are sociopaths who are attracted by the ease with which they can avoid responsibility and accountability for their actions. Yeah. No. This argument against is old enough that it is now a straw man. There are known state-level actors actively pushing propaganda through the internet. There are companies founded with the express purpose of providing influence in exchange for money. There are companies founded with the express purpose of providing bot accounts to make it seem as if a person is more popular than they are. There is an industry and state level actors abusing anonymity online to shift discourse, with real life consequences more severe than death having already resulted. It isn't unreasonable to suppose that it is possible that millions of people will die as a consequence of some of the manipulations which has already occurred, given UN projections regarding the effect of climate change. We accelerate in progression as we progress. 1995 is a lifetime ago. You might as well link Plato. Recent google slides which made it to Hacker News frontpage has a slide that put the estimate of bot traffic on the internet near 30% of all traffic. Taxes can be great; taxes without representation aren't. Anonymity can be great; anonymity for people with hostile motives who influence things which do not relate to themselves are not. Have a little subtlety. Edit: I'm getting downvoted. Go watch Facebook testimony to congress and similar things in which their is admission of acts as vile as extremist groups being intentionally provoked into armed conflict being performed on online platform. Go read about the IRA and probes into Russian influence on social media. Stop being so ignorant, Hacker News. I get that you filter bubble out political talk, but in case you missed it, there is an actual reason behind why California is moving forward with a law to ban bots which don't confess to being a bot and similar laws designed to curtail these influence campaigns. Its not that legislators are insane.

malvosenior 8y ago
I am commenting with a pseudonym on this website and I'm sure I hold many views which you would attribute to "bots". I am however a real person and not even Russian! Most of the people who you disagree with are the same, you must accept that.
- robotrout 8y ago

jumelles 8y ago

Wow, over twenty years old. Prescient.

pjc50 8y ago

The article is absolutely correct that there are lots of good uses for protecting anonymity or pseudonmity - that's what we fought the "real names" war for, after all. Moderation is also vital to making a space usable. Enforcing real names is not a moderation policy in and of itself - people are perfectly willing to post hate speech under their own name, including in national newspapers. Where these intersect is that it's much easier to moderate if you can ban someone in a way that they stay banned.