7 ms·

The best way to protect dissidents would be not to ask unnecessary personal information like phone numbers. Sadly, it is difficult to find a messenger or web em

The best way to protect dissidents would be not to ask unnecessary personal information like phone numbers. Sadly, it is difficult to find a messenger or web email service that doesn't require it.

sneak 7y ago
It's hard to deduplicate spam users without an identifier that is at least slightly costly to get. There's no easy/practical way to do "charge $0.02 per signup". If you get 10k new accounts in 5 minutes and they're all from some VoIP provider in a tiny corner of the second or third world, you have some data to work with there.
- brongondwana 7y ago
  That and, everyone doesn't want you to have any way to uniquely identify them and contact them right up until the moment they forget their password.
- devin 7y ago
  Could someone who downvoted explain their disagreement? There seems a kernel of truth here that more than a few of us could agree on.
  - sneak 7y ago
    I think I have attracted someone’s ire, that seems to happen to all or most of my comments within a short window after posting.
    - remotecool 7y ago
      This happened to me for awhile too. I think people that disagreed with you on a previous post are using bots to downvote you.
      - mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
        This would surprise me given the fairly high karma minimum to downvote.
        novok 7y ago
        Make a new account every time you reach the threshold, add it to the bot list.
        mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
        Yeah, I thought of that, I was just thinking that surely someone able to create sufficient karma to do something like that would necessarily also be unlikely to be petty enough to bother. Maybe I am too charitable.
        novok 7y ago
        You can gain karma fairly casually by just using the site, you get 1 karma per comment, so it's easy to make it a passive activity. The site has also been around for over a decade, lots of opportunity to accumulate.
ImprovedSilence 7y ago
Perhaps true. But the original cool thing about Twitter was that you could tweet just by texting the twitter number from your dumb phone. The service literally required your phone number, and made broadcast information happen in real-time before smartphones really were ubiquitous. Many messenger apps still use/link people through their numbers. While it is possible to not require numbers, and services like Facebook surely never needed it, there are times when providing phone numbers really reduces friction in communication.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  "Reducing friction" is not worth costing people their lives or freedom.
  - nordsieck 7y ago
    > "Reducing friction" is not worth costing people their lives or freedom. I mean, if you're a dissident in a country with a violent government, maybe don't use the service that requires personal information? It seems a bit much to me to say no service ever should require people's phone numbers because somewhere, someone might make a bad decision and use the service when they shouldn't have.
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      That's like saying, "I mean, if you're a dissident in a country with a violent government, maybe don't use any service and keep your mouth shut because your freedom isn't as important as my VC money." Maybe SV should try to innovate more instead of reverting to "Wow, sucks to live where you do; hold my craft beer" so much these days. The internet was supposed to set people free. It's not working.

The best way to protect dissidents would be not to ask unnecessary personal information like phone numbers. Sadly, it is difficult to find a messenger or web email service that doesn't require it.

sneak 7y ago

It's hard to deduplicate spam users without an identifier that is at least slightly costly to get. There's no easy/practical way to do "charge $0.02 per signup". If you get 10k new accounts in 5 minutes and they're all from some VoIP provider in a tiny corner of the second or third world, you have some data to work with there.

brongondwana 7y ago
That and, everyone doesn't want you to have any way to uniquely identify them and contact them right up until the moment they forget their password.
devin 7y ago
Could someone who downvoted explain their disagreement? There seems a kernel of truth here that more than a few of us could agree on.
- sneak 7y ago
  I think I have attracted someone’s ire, that seems to happen to all or most of my comments within a short window after posting.
  - remotecool 7y ago
    This happened to me for awhile too. I think people that disagreed with you on a previous post are using bots to downvote you.
    - mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
      This would surprise me given the fairly high karma minimum to downvote.
      - novok 7y ago
        Make a new account every time you reach the threshold, add it to the bot list.
        mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
        Yeah, I thought of that, I was just thinking that surely someone able to create sufficient karma to do something like that would necessarily also be unlikely to be petty enough to bother. Maybe I am too charitable.
        novok 7y ago
        You can gain karma fairly casually by just using the site, you get 1 karma per comment, so it's easy to make it a passive activity. The site has also been around for over a decade, lots of opportunity to accumulate.

ImprovedSilence 7y ago

Perhaps true. But the original cool thing about Twitter was that you could tweet just by texting the twitter number from your dumb phone. The service literally required your phone number, and made broadcast information happen in real-time before smartphones really were ubiquitous. Many messenger apps still use/link people through their numbers. While it is possible to not require numbers, and services like Facebook surely never needed it, there are times when providing phone numbers really reduces friction in communication.

reaperducer 7y ago
"Reducing friction" is not worth costing people their lives or freedom.
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > "Reducing friction" is not worth costing people their lives or freedom. I mean, if you're a dissident in a country with a violent government, maybe don't use the service that requires personal information? It seems a bit much to me to say no service ever should require people's phone numbers because somewhere, someone might make a bad decision and use the service when they shouldn't have.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    That's like saying, "I mean, if you're a dissident in a country with a violent government, maybe don't use any service and keep your mouth shut because your freedom isn't as important as my VC money." Maybe SV should try to innovate more instead of reverting to "Wow, sucks to live where you do; hold my craft beer" so much these days. The internet was supposed to set people free. It's not working.