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According to a loose interpretation of Plato in The republic referencing the story of The Ring of Gyges anonymity basically ruins people. IMHO we'd need what w

According to a loose interpretation of Plato in The republic referencing the story of The Ring of Gyges anonymity basically ruins people. IMHO we'd need what we can't easily have, single-confirmed-identity-accounts for everyone. If Tim Berners Lee had been more of a pessimist, a historian, and a psychologist he might have baked in some end to end encryption with public/private key pairs and account centrality. But he didn't. I'm curious if the USA or any state power could have required an SCIA for everyone. Maybe it could have come from Apple? I could see some kinda of pre-AOL online thing being baked into MacOs, maybe. But yea, Facebook tried it and people made a fuss. We really kinda need it. It being a lack of wide spread anonymity for online personas. Invisibility really does bring out the worst in people.

BitwiseFool 6y ago
I don't think verified identities would address the fakeness/authenticity problem because you could simply pay someone to shill with their verified account. Sure, you would know 'who' posted the opinion but you could never be sure if they were being compensated to do so. You also run into the issue of people being seemingly authentic with their views, but also being paid to promote them. Brooklyn Dad Defiant is a great example, he's consistent with his views, he's not anonymous, and he also got paid $60k by a PAC.
- kleer001 6y ago
  Yes, but it would cut down on the magnitude of promoted views. As it is now it's free. A motivated party can easily generate a seemingly honest and true and good faith crowd of thousands with some code and a bit of creativity. With verified accounts (again, it's nearly impossible to implement at this point) it would take a lot of money to get those thousand actual people. IMHO getting rid of free twitter bots would be a good first step. And yes, I know lots of them do good. But does it balance out? Likely not. Maybe tie them to registered accts? There must be some way to clean house. And, no house is 100% clean, but 80% is better than 5%.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

I don't think verified identities would address the fakeness/authenticity problem because you could simply pay someone to shill with their verified account. Sure, you would know 'who' posted the opinion but you could never be sure if they were being compensated to do so. You also run into the issue of people being seemingly authentic with their views, but also being paid to promote them. Brooklyn Dad Defiant is a great example, he's consistent with his views, he's not anonymous, and he also got paid $60k by a PAC.

kleer001 6y ago
Yes, but it would cut down on the magnitude of promoted views. As it is now it's free. A motivated party can easily generate a seemingly honest and true and good faith crowd of thousands with some code and a bit of creativity. With verified accounts (again, it's nearly impossible to implement at this point) it would take a lot of money to get those thousand actual people. IMHO getting rid of free twitter bots would be a good first step. And yes, I know lots of them do good. But does it balance out? Likely not. Maybe tie them to registered accts? There must be some way to clean house. And, no house is 100% clean, but 80% is better than 5%.