8 ms·

Voice, an invite-only social network where everyone is verified

32 points by aspenmayer 6y ago

empath75 6y ago
Here’s what I’m surprised about — nobody has built a moderation focused social network that has tried to poach Reddit’s best moderators by offering to pay them.
aspenmayer 6y ago
Voice in the news https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-finally-launches-on-eos https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-... Welcome post https://app.voice.com/post/@salah/join-us-1593835144-1 https://app.voice.com/post/@salah/join-us-1593835144-1 Help and FAQs https://help.voice.com/hc/en-us https://help.voice.com/hc/en-us The tech which makes Voice work https://eos.io https://eos.io
Nextgrid 6y ago
What's the business model? One of the problems with current social media is that their advertising-dependent business model relies on "engagement" and thus the platforms are built to encourage outrage, etc.
fortran77 6y ago
Ha! Blockchain! > Voice uses the inherent characteristics of blockchain technology to promote trusted and transparent social interactions.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  So based on that quote either they don't know what blockchains do and don't do, or they're just straight-up lying. Voice requires the use of EOS coins, the creator of which paid a $24 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission over its 2017 ICO. From https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bubble-machines/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bu... "The legal EOS Token Purchase Agreement is a frankly amazing document that everyone should read.[1] US citizens or residents are not to buy the tokens (though EOS assures us they totally don’t constitute a security – hear that, SEC?); the tokens are defined as not being useful in any manner whatsoever; forty-eight hours after the end of the distribution period, the tokens will no longer be transferable; the buyer promises not to purchase them for speculation or investment. If there’s any legal problems caused by you buying these officially worthless things, you agree to indemnify EOS." [1] PDF: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%20Purchase%20Agreement%20-%20June%2022,%202017.pdf https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%...
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    You and David himself have posted about this, and I am glad you did. This looks pretty shady considering the parties involved and their past actions. I appreciate the context you bring to this post.
emerged 6y ago
There is a push against anonymity on the internet, but I'm not convinced that is the best way. Not with the growing threat of cancel culture. I'd rather go the other direction and provide additional assurances of privacy.
- newacct583 6y ago
  > growing threat of cancel culture Really? While there are excesses everywhere in all things, this it just silly. This is a point made in sympathy to the goals of a political campaign and not out of genuine fear. People aren't going to stop using their real names for fear of being "cancelled", come on.
  - josteink 6y ago
    I’ve long stopped using my real identity when voicing “deviant” political opinions. The threat of cancel culture is very, very real.
    - emerged 6y ago
      It's hard to imagine being so uncontroversial in your opinions, that you could afford not to even believe cancel culture is a real thing. Thing is, eventually everyone is targeted for one reason or another as the focus shifts, and over time the focus of the day will contradict the focus of the past.
      - newacct583 6y ago
        I don't think I claimed it didn't exist, I claimed that the paranoia about it that exists right now on the American right is a fabrication. It's the theme that the Trump campaign has decided on running against (c.f. the speech at Mt. Rushmore[1]) which is why it's en vogue to talk about and no doubt why it sprung so readily to your fingers in a discussion about internet anonymity. [1] For those old enough to remember "They hate us for our freedoms" and "Radical Islamic Terrorism", this obsession seems like pretty weak sauce, at least as existential threats go. Previous administrations could at least invoke the threat of death. The worst terrors of the modern conservative are apparently being yelled at by hippies on the internet.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
crsv 6y ago
Pretty expensive domain. Wonder if it was bought using ICO fugazi money, since this looks like the content is oddly interested in fringe crypto content.
- realbarack 6y ago
  Apparently they recently got a "$150 million cash injection": https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-finally-launches-on-eos https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-.... And voice.com cost $30 MILLION!
- seebetter 6y ago
  They raised like $4 billion. I like Dan Larimer but here's a funny article that encompasses his background- https://coinjazeera.news/dan-larimer-receives-guinness-world-record-for-most-crypto-exit-scams/ https://coinjazeera.news/dan-larimer-receives-guinness-world...
web-cowboy 6y ago
I want this exact same thing (for many of the same reasons), but for gaming. - Toxic people can finally be identified and penalized - Better matchmaking (less "smurfing", less streamer accounts going from zero to hero) I haven't looked too closely at Voice's setup, but does "verified" always have to mean non-private, and non-anonymous?
- curuinor 6y ago
  you have to put in your national ID number to register an account for a MMORPG in Korea. does it help toxicity? surprisingly marginally.
- livueta 6y ago
  I feel like there's a need for a privacy-protecting attestation service/protocol. Fully anonymous discussion boards/social networks are tricky because of obvious sockposting-related problems. Another poster mentioned a Voat mechanism for non-username identification, but it sounds like the old *ch concept where some identifiers are hashed s.t. the same poster gets the same ID across some subset of posts (time, topic, etc). That's an ok way of trying to maintain integrity without publicly deanonymizing participants, but is vulnerable to all kinds of technical workarounds. Anecdotally, dealing with ban-evaders in a forum context got a lot harder when CGNAT'd/v6 mobile IPs started getting common. So, the next step is attesting your identity directly to the site. But, who's going to give some random forum their government-issued ID? Despite SV firms recently trying to normalize that, hopefully fairly few. Facebook can get away with it, but only because they're already Facebook and benefit from the trust implied by scale. Beyond that, what happens when a user says something impolitic and brings down the mob? Trust the mods to not unmask the user? Meh. If site operators could ask a question like "is this person a real person, do they already have an account with us, do they leave in geographical region X" and a prospective user was able to obtain an attestation that those qualities are true without that attestation revealing any additional information (as well as being cryptographically secure), you could do some interesting things. The downside is the attestation service then becomes a point of attack for those interested in unmasking individuals. Is it a private company that must answer subpoenas? What if the government wants the proverbial pen register or the organization gets subverted in some other way? Dunno. The ideal is neither side (attestor or service) knows more than it has to - service doesn't know anything about the user besides the handful of agreed-upon facts; the attestor doesn't know anything about the service. Obligatory buzzword: seems like a potential application of zero-knowledge proofs.
ksec 6y ago
Error 1020 Access denied What happened? This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.
- luckylion 6y ago
  The money was spent on buying the domain, there wasn't any budget to implement caching.
im3w1l 6y ago
So can someone explain what this is? It's not very clear to me.
floatingatoll 6y ago
The third post on the page is coinspam. Nope, I misread, this is a blockchain social network. @aspenmayer, what is interesting about this social network to you?
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  I found it while on Twitter, and thought the space was really expanding rapidly. I thought that their KYC integration combined with a kind of micropayment tipping/boosting mechanism was interesting as a way of both surfacing and rewarding quality content in a transparent, verifiable way. I also posted some recent things about Paras[1], which uses NEAR Protocol[2], both of which I find interesting for the same reasons. Paras allows what seems to me like a self-hosted federated platform with built-in tipping/mining/staking/royalties. Do you find this interesting too? What are you looking at in this space? I’m a learner and hold no cryptocurrency of any kind, nor do I develop for any crypto. I’m just curious about it, and want to share what I’m seeing if it seems like it will resonate with the audience, in this case HN. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737526 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737560
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    What is it about .. “surfacing and rewarding quality content” (I only write like this at work?) .. that makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning and research it and post about it? Is there some personal experience that could help us understand your interest? Have you worked as a librarian? Do you believe in blockchain as a way to overcome discrimination? Have you worked as a newspaper editor and feel that decentralized opinions are a solution to problems you encountered? If so, what were those problems, and how did they make you feel? I can’t tell from your reply if you have any emotions on the topic, or why. You find the topic interesting because of a list of buzzwords, but your reply - while a very well-written set of words - does not contain any emotion with which others can resonate. As a result my initial takeaway is that you’re somehow shilling for coin - profiting somehow from placing this content at HN, If you aren’t, I apologize! But this is HN, and the coin spam is real, and so if you can bring some life to why you personally are jazzed about this - not just referencing the technologies by keyword but actually explaining why they matter to you using feelings words - then that would go a long way towards establishing some authenticity here.
FryHigh 6y ago
Main differences from the usual social network. - KYC based account registration. Legally verified names. - Blockchain powered (de-centralisation). Censorship resistant. Many interfaces to this website. - Earn money. Users get paid for content directly. More likes, views translate to payment. Early stages of voice.com but the ideas have potential in a hard to crack market.
- faitswulff 6y ago
  > Earn money. Users get paid for content directly. More likes, views translate to payment. Is this funded on an advertising model? Otherwise where does the money to pay users come from?
  - davidgerard 6y ago
    magical crypto "money" - Voice is basically EOS Twitter
philipkiely 6y ago
I use my real name, a recent photo (where possible), links to my own domain, and other personally identifiable information on every site that I use, even default anonymous ones like Reddit. I do not have alt accounts. Being able to live this way on the internet is a privilege that I recognize is not available to many people, but for those who can I highly recommend it; it ensures that I always think twice before posting and engage in good faith.
- amoshi 6y ago
  What if you want to express a thought or opinion that is not politically correct though, or might simply be controversial? It by think twice you mean not express it at all, then it sounds like subconscious self-censorship (if such a thing exists). Just a reminder, politically incorrect != incorrect
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    This reads like one wanting to keep their accumulated social capital and continue making social capital outlays publicly, and likewise reap the dividends of their own social capital investments, as long as the winds of popular acclaim blow one’s way, while expecting to keep one’s shirt when the winds change. It seems like one not having any skin in the game, or wanting to have it both ways. Talk is cheap. Money talks, bullshit walks. Put your money where your mouth is, or you’re freeloading, lacking the courage of your convictions, or lacking the moral turpitude to proclaim your convictions publicly.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      As a counterpoint to myself, I also agree with the link below. There are good reasons for and against using real names. I do not mean to paint with too wide a brush; all free people are and should always be able to decide for themselves whether to use their name or a pseudonym, and readers are usually able to tell why authors do so from context. It gets a bit muddy where social media comes into play, which is why this debate will never be over, and why there is no one right answer. I hope I didn’t come off as someone imposing my choice on others. I simply think there are more downsides than upsides for readers when it comes to pseudonymous authors; however, some texts will never be written under an author’s real name for perfectly legitimate or no reason, and the world would be diminished if those voices were not also heard, and those stories not told. https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Re...
davidgerard 6y ago
With the real names thing, they might have the startling success of Google Plus! A real names policy is one of those perennial ideas people keep thinking will fix everything - but there's zero evidence for this, and some evidence against it. The total examples I have: * In 2007, South Korea required commenters on sites with over 100,000 users to supply their Resident Registration Number (national identity number), and this reduced malicious comments by ... 0.9%. They scrapped it in 2011. 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... * UK, 2007: a study of students showed they were worse, not better. "There was four times as much flaming when they knew each other than when they didn't." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/12/guardianweeklytechnologysection.privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/12/guardianw... * In a now-unavailable post to Google+ by Yonatan Zunger, one of the people whose problem Google+ was, he said: https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq > "While there was an expectation that people would behave better when their activity was tied to their own identity, as that identity is presumably a highly valuable and non-renewable resource to them, the evidence weighed against it: people seem quite willing to be jerks under their own identities." Voice has put forth this policy that's completely lacking in evidence, presumably because they just felt like it'd work out fine. And that's before we get to Voice's core audience being the crypto crowd - who have some reluctance to provide full KYC dox to join EOS Twitter. If anyone ever tries to tell you that a Real Names policy is a good idea - ask them for their numbers on this. Also, did you know Voice paid $30m for the name voice.com? A historical record amount - even sex.com only went for $13m. https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/20/yes-voice-com-is-the-most-expensive-publicly-announced-domain-ever-sold/ https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/20/yes-voice-com-is-the-m...
8organicbits 6y ago
Every site that does "verification" seems to also prohibit anonymity (like this one seems to do). But I don't think that needs to be. Imagine a site that does ID verification. Add OAuth and now other sites can integrate (similar to login with Google). However, instead of passing name, user ID, and email the verification site can pass an anonymous ID. With that approach you get 1-to-1 guarantees for human-to-account, preventing sock puppet accounts, users who create new accounts when banned, etc. But, the other sites never know who the user actually is. Its anonymzing proxy meets OAuth single sign on. Anyone know existing site that do anything like that?
- rglullis 6y ago
  https://www.human-id.org/ https://www.human-id.org/
seemslegit 6y ago
Sounds like a very useful way to identify people one would not wish to hear from in real life either.
loraa 6y ago
Another flop waiting to happen. You know, because everyone is dying to be on the social network that no one you know will ever use.

32 points by aspenmayer 6y ago

Here’s what I’m surprised about — nobody has built a moderation focused social network that has tried to poach Reddit’s best moderators by offering to pay them.

aspenmayer 6y ago

Voice in the news https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-finally-launches-on-eos https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-... Welcome post https://app.voice.com/post/@salah/join-us-1593835144-1 https://app.voice.com/post/@salah/join-us-1593835144-1 Help and FAQs https://help.voice.com/hc/en-us https://help.voice.com/hc/en-us The tech which makes Voice work https://eos.io https://eos.io

Nextgrid 6y ago

What's the business model? One of the problems with current social media is that their advertising-dependent business model relies on "engagement" and thus the platforms are built to encourage outrage, etc.

fortran77 6y ago

Ha! Blockchain! > Voice uses the inherent characteristics of blockchain technology to promote trusted and transparent social interactions.

CharlesW 6y ago
So based on that quote either they don't know what blockchains do and don't do, or they're just straight-up lying. Voice requires the use of EOS coins, the creator of which paid a $24 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission over its 2017 ICO. From https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bubble-machines/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bu... "The legal EOS Token Purchase Agreement is a frankly amazing document that everyone should read.[1] US citizens or residents are not to buy the tokens (though EOS assures us they totally don’t constitute a security – hear that, SEC?); the tokens are defined as not being useful in any manner whatsoever; forty-eight hours after the end of the distribution period, the tokens will no longer be transferable; the buyer promises not to purchase them for speculation or investment. If there’s any legal problems caused by you buying these officially worthless things, you agree to indemnify EOS." [1] PDF: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%20Purchase%20Agreement%20-%20June%2022,%202017.pdf https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%...
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  You and David himself have posted about this, and I am glad you did. This looks pretty shady considering the parties involved and their past actions. I appreciate the context you bring to this post.

emerged 6y ago

There is a push against anonymity on the internet, but I'm not convinced that is the best way. Not with the growing threat of cancel culture. I'd rather go the other direction and provide additional assurances of privacy.

newacct583 6y ago
> growing threat of cancel culture Really? While there are excesses everywhere in all things, this it just silly. This is a point made in sympathy to the goals of a political campaign and not out of genuine fear. People aren't going to stop using their real names for fear of being "cancelled", come on.
- josteink 6y ago
  I’ve long stopped using my real identity when voicing “deviant” political opinions. The threat of cancel culture is very, very real.
  - emerged 6y ago
    It's hard to imagine being so uncontroversial in your opinions, that you could afford not to even believe cancel culture is a real thing. Thing is, eventually everyone is targeted for one reason or another as the focus shifts, and over time the focus of the day will contradict the focus of the past.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      I don't think I claimed it didn't exist, I claimed that the paranoia about it that exists right now on the American right is a fabrication. It's the theme that the Trump campaign has decided on running against (c.f. the speech at Mt. Rushmore[1]) which is why it's en vogue to talk about and no doubt why it sprung so readily to your fingers in a discussion about internet anonymity. [1] For those old enough to remember "They hate us for our freedoms" and "Radical Islamic Terrorism", this obsession seems like pretty weak sauce, at least as existential threats go. Previous administrations could at least invoke the threat of death. The worst terrors of the modern conservative are apparently being yelled at by hippies on the internet.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

crsv 6y ago

Pretty expensive domain. Wonder if it was bought using ICO fugazi money, since this looks like the content is oddly interested in fringe crypto content.

realbarack 6y ago
Apparently they recently got a "$150 million cash injection": https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-finally-launches-on-eos https://decrypt.co/34598/crypto-social-media-platform-voice-.... And voice.com cost $30 MILLION!
seebetter 6y ago
They raised like $4 billion. I like Dan Larimer but here's a funny article that encompasses his background- https://coinjazeera.news/dan-larimer-receives-guinness-world-record-for-most-crypto-exit-scams/ https://coinjazeera.news/dan-larimer-receives-guinness-world...

web-cowboy 6y ago

I want this exact same thing (for many of the same reasons), but for gaming. - Toxic people can finally be identified and penalized - Better matchmaking (less "smurfing", less streamer accounts going from zero to hero) I haven't looked too closely at Voice's setup, but does "verified" always have to mean non-private, and non-anonymous?

curuinor 6y ago
you have to put in your national ID number to register an account for a MMORPG in Korea. does it help toxicity? surprisingly marginally.
livueta 6y ago
I feel like there's a need for a privacy-protecting attestation service/protocol. Fully anonymous discussion boards/social networks are tricky because of obvious sockposting-related problems. Another poster mentioned a Voat mechanism for non-username identification, but it sounds like the old *ch concept where some identifiers are hashed s.t. the same poster gets the same ID across some subset of posts (time, topic, etc). That's an ok way of trying to maintain integrity without publicly deanonymizing participants, but is vulnerable to all kinds of technical workarounds. Anecdotally, dealing with ban-evaders in a forum context got a lot harder when CGNAT'd/v6 mobile IPs started getting common. So, the next step is attesting your identity directly to the site. But, who's going to give some random forum their government-issued ID? Despite SV firms recently trying to normalize that, hopefully fairly few. Facebook can get away with it, but only because they're already Facebook and benefit from the trust implied by scale. Beyond that, what happens when a user says something impolitic and brings down the mob? Trust the mods to not unmask the user? Meh. If site operators could ask a question like "is this person a real person, do they already have an account with us, do they leave in geographical region X" and a prospective user was able to obtain an attestation that those qualities are true without that attestation revealing any additional information (as well as being cryptographically secure), you could do some interesting things. The downside is the attestation service then becomes a point of attack for those interested in unmasking individuals. Is it a private company that must answer subpoenas? What if the government wants the proverbial pen register or the organization gets subverted in some other way? Dunno. The ideal is neither side (attestor or service) knows more than it has to - service doesn't know anything about the user besides the handful of agreed-upon facts; the attestor doesn't know anything about the service. Obligatory buzzword: seems like a potential application of zero-knowledge proofs.

ksec 6y ago

Error 1020 Access denied What happened? This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.

luckylion 6y ago
The money was spent on buying the domain, there wasn't any budget to implement caching.

im3w1l 6y ago

So can someone explain what this is? It's not very clear to me.

floatingatoll 6y ago

The third post on the page is coinspam. Nope, I misread, this is a blockchain social network. @aspenmayer, what is interesting about this social network to you?

aspenmayer 6y ago
I found it while on Twitter, and thought the space was really expanding rapidly. I thought that their KYC integration combined with a kind of micropayment tipping/boosting mechanism was interesting as a way of both surfacing and rewarding quality content in a transparent, verifiable way. I also posted some recent things about Paras[1], which uses NEAR Protocol[2], both of which I find interesting for the same reasons. Paras allows what seems to me like a self-hosted federated platform with built-in tipping/mining/staking/royalties. Do you find this interesting too? What are you looking at in this space? I’m a learner and hold no cryptocurrency of any kind, nor do I develop for any crypto. I’m just curious about it, and want to share what I’m seeing if it seems like it will resonate with the audience, in this case HN. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737526 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737560
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  What is it about .. “surfacing and rewarding quality content” (I only write like this at work?) .. that makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning and research it and post about it? Is there some personal experience that could help us understand your interest? Have you worked as a librarian? Do you believe in blockchain as a way to overcome discrimination? Have you worked as a newspaper editor and feel that decentralized opinions are a solution to problems you encountered? If so, what were those problems, and how did they make you feel? I can’t tell from your reply if you have any emotions on the topic, or why. You find the topic interesting because of a list of buzzwords, but your reply - while a very well-written set of words - does not contain any emotion with which others can resonate. As a result my initial takeaway is that you’re somehow shilling for coin - profiting somehow from placing this content at HN, If you aren’t, I apologize! But this is HN, and the coin spam is real, and so if you can bring some life to why you personally are jazzed about this - not just referencing the technologies by keyword but actually explaining why they matter to you using feelings words - then that would go a long way towards establishing some authenticity here.

FryHigh 6y ago

Main differences from the usual social network. - KYC based account registration. Legally verified names. - Blockchain powered (de-centralisation). Censorship resistant. Many interfaces to this website. - Earn money. Users get paid for content directly. More likes, views translate to payment. Early stages of voice.com but the ideas have potential in a hard to crack market.

faitswulff 6y ago
> Earn money. Users get paid for content directly. More likes, views translate to payment. Is this funded on an advertising model? Otherwise where does the money to pay users come from?
- davidgerard 6y ago
  magical crypto "money" - Voice is basically EOS Twitter

philipkiely 6y ago

I use my real name, a recent photo (where possible), links to my own domain, and other personally identifiable information on every site that I use, even default anonymous ones like Reddit. I do not have alt accounts. Being able to live this way on the internet is a privilege that I recognize is not available to many people, but for those who can I highly recommend it; it ensures that I always think twice before posting and engage in good faith.

amoshi 6y ago
What if you want to express a thought or opinion that is not politically correct though, or might simply be controversial? It by think twice you mean not express it at all, then it sounds like subconscious self-censorship (if such a thing exists). Just a reminder, politically incorrect != incorrect
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  This reads like one wanting to keep their accumulated social capital and continue making social capital outlays publicly, and likewise reap the dividends of their own social capital investments, as long as the winds of popular acclaim blow one’s way, while expecting to keep one’s shirt when the winds change. It seems like one not having any skin in the game, or wanting to have it both ways. Talk is cheap. Money talks, bullshit walks. Put your money where your mouth is, or you’re freeloading, lacking the courage of your convictions, or lacking the moral turpitude to proclaim your convictions publicly.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    As a counterpoint to myself, I also agree with the link below. There are good reasons for and against using real names. I do not mean to paint with too wide a brush; all free people are and should always be able to decide for themselves whether to use their name or a pseudonym, and readers are usually able to tell why authors do so from context. It gets a bit muddy where social media comes into play, which is why this debate will never be over, and why there is no one right answer. I hope I didn’t come off as someone imposing my choice on others. I simply think there are more downsides than upsides for readers when it comes to pseudonymous authors; however, some texts will never be written under an author’s real name for perfectly legitimate or no reason, and the world would be diminished if those voices were not also heard, and those stories not told. https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Re...

davidgerard 6y ago

With the real names thing, they might have the startling success of Google Plus! A real names policy is one of those perennial ideas people keep thinking will fix everything - but there's zero evidence for this, and some evidence against it. The total examples I have: * In 2007, South Korea required commenters on sites with over 100,000 users to supply their Resident Registration Number (national identity number), and this reduced malicious comments by ... 0.9%. They scrapped it in 2011. 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... * UK, 2007: a study of students showed they were worse, not better. "There was four times as much flaming when they knew each other than when they didn't." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/12/guardianweeklytechnologysection.privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/12/guardianw... * In a now-unavailable post to Google+ by Yonatan Zunger, one of the people whose problem Google+ was, he said: https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq > "While there was an expectation that people would behave better when their activity was tied to their own identity, as that identity is presumably a highly valuable and non-renewable resource to them, the evidence weighed against it: people seem quite willing to be jerks under their own identities." Voice has put forth this policy that's completely lacking in evidence, presumably because they just felt like it'd work out fine. And that's before we get to Voice's core audience being the crypto crowd - who have some reluctance to provide full KYC dox to join EOS Twitter. If anyone ever tries to tell you that a Real Names policy is a good idea - ask them for their numbers on this. Also, did you know Voice paid $30m for the name voice.com? A historical record amount - even sex.com only went for $13m. https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/20/yes-voice-com-is-the-most-expensive-publicly-announced-domain-ever-sold/ https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/20/yes-voice-com-is-the-m...

8organicbits 6y ago

Every site that does "verification" seems to also prohibit anonymity (like this one seems to do). But I don't think that needs to be. Imagine a site that does ID verification. Add OAuth and now other sites can integrate (similar to login with Google). However, instead of passing name, user ID, and email the verification site can pass an anonymous ID. With that approach you get 1-to-1 guarantees for human-to-account, preventing sock puppet accounts, users who create new accounts when banned, etc. But, the other sites never know who the user actually is. Its anonymzing proxy meets OAuth single sign on. Anyone know existing site that do anything like that?

rglullis 6y ago
https://www.human-id.org/ https://www.human-id.org/

seemslegit 6y ago

Sounds like a very useful way to identify people one would not wish to hear from in real life either.

loraa 6y ago

Another flop waiting to happen. You know, because everyone is dying to be on the social network that no one you know will ever use.