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> But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing. If you strike the wo

> But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing. If you strike the word "online" this statement works for most of history. The only things that have changed are the sheer scale, speed, and cost of it. We have small teams that can generate more noise than a nation state could have prayed for just a generation ago.. and they're doing it faster and cheaper than ever before. Unfortunately, most of the proposed solutions - real names, verified identities, fighting "disinformation" - come with catastrophic downsides.

umvi 6y ago
What are the catastrophic downsides to real names and verified identities? Those things weren't catastrophic downsides before the internet existed when publishing your opinion in newspapers or books or whatever.
- 542458 6y ago
  I think the argument is that those systems DO contain significant downsides (ease of censorship, discouraging socially unacceptable viewpoints, etc) that you’d be porting to the web.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    censorship and discouraging socially unacceptable views is the upside. What else do you think throwing Amazon shill bots off your platform is? That's the entire point of identity systems. Deciding who stays in and who stays out and sanctioning bad actors. Identity makes it so that harming a community has costs, and helping a community accrues trust. That's all it is.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      No, it is the downside. Everyone has 1 million different opinions that are going to be controversial to someone out there. I don't want it to be easy for anyone who disagrees with people, on anything, to track down someone physically, in real life. > Deciding who stays in and who stays Ok and I don't want you to be able to decide who stays in and stays out. It should be very difficult to keep others that you don't like out. And for the very extreme situations, that are exceptionally bad, we have the police and court system. You should only be able to "keep people out" of engaging in speech if their actions are so bad that you are literally willing to lock them up in prison for it.
      - Barrin92 6y ago
        >to track down someone physically, in real life. That's not the same as having a consistent identity on the internet. You can easily think of an identity provider on the web that doesn't expose who you physically are, think of like a crypto wallet, or something like Urbit attempts. Having a consistent identity is what matters with an incentive to be a good member, we don't need to expose your real world name at all. >It should be very difficult to keep others that you don't like out. No, it should be very easy to keep people out, because that's the fundamental mechanism behind any community, defining its borders and limits. That's what freedom of assembly is. There should be many different communities and they all should easily be able to set differentiated rules for who can participate and who can't. This is the basis for pluralism. A sort of free-wheeling over-connected hivemind like Twitter where it's either call the police or post what you want doesn't work precisely because it is not a community at all. The reason discourse has gone to hell is because there literally is only one and everyone's part of it. That's why we're having a somewhat sane conversation on hackernews right now. Because this community is smaller, it's moderated, and we can to a degree escape from the shitstorm of mass social media. And that's only because the rules here are much more strict than they are on Twitter.
        caseysoftware 6y ago
        > No, it should be very easy to keep people out, because that's the fundamental mechanism behind any community, defining its borders and limits. That's what freedom of assembly is. There should be many different communities and they all should easily be able to set differentiated rules for who can participate and who can't. Sounds like you oppose Inclusion. For your sake, I hope no one finds that controversial.
        stale2002 6y ago
        > That's not the same as having a consistent identity on the internet. Its effectively the same thing, for most people. If someone is only allowed to have 1 identity on the internet, then people would have to link it to their real life identity, for practical reasons. How else would people find me, when I want them to? Most people have a public identity, and other private ones. If I am only allowed to have 1 identity, then most people aren't going to give up the ability to have a public one, because there is large practical value to having a public identity. People only having 2 choice, choice 1 being to give up their public persona completely, or choice 2, having everything on the internet that they do, permanently linked to their public identity, is a horrible choice, that will have a huge chilling effect. > There should be many different communities Oh, if you want to participate in your own community, that require people to give you their government ID (Or crypto identity, or whatever) in order to participate, then I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with, is the authoritarian crazies, who want to take away other people's right to participate in the communities of their choosing. If most other people choose to participate in the normal internet, where most websites do not require you to have a singular ID, then leave us alone and let us do that. Go ahead and participate in your government ID facebook. (Or I guess that is just facebook already?) Just don't going around saying that no other communities, that value privacy more than you do, should be able to exist. > That's what freedom of assembly is. Freedom of assembly also includes people choosing to participate in communities where singular IDs are not a requirement, and alt accounts are allowed.
542458 6y ago
What about just requiring companies to identify paid messaging (like political ads: “Paid for by XYZ”)? Obviously this doesn’t solve any messaging coming from overseas, but it at least helps with companies with an American presence astroturfing their own reviews etc.
- natosaichek 6y ago
  Enforcement is the challenge. Without tracking down every reviewer, there is currently no way to determine whether a review was left by an employee of a covered/relevant company, or just a 'civilian.'
  - RileyJames 6y ago
    5% of revenue. Don't need to catch many, or often, to get the message across. The cost has to outweigh the risk. If it's still prevalent after 5 years, double it.
    - banannaise 6y ago
      Don't take this as a serious criticism, but I look forward to the bizarro world where corporations compete to infiltrate and astroturf each other in ways that get their competitors fined into oblivion.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Try the same argument with something else: "Humans have always produced CO2 and cut down trees. The only things that have changed in past 1000 years are the sheer scale, speed, and cost of it."

umvi 6y ago

What are the catastrophic downsides to real names and verified identities? Those things weren't catastrophic downsides before the internet existed when publishing your opinion in newspapers or books or whatever.

542458 6y ago
I think the argument is that those systems DO contain significant downsides (ease of censorship, discouraging socially unacceptable viewpoints, etc) that you’d be porting to the web.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  censorship and discouraging socially unacceptable views is the upside. What else do you think throwing Amazon shill bots off your platform is? That's the entire point of identity systems. Deciding who stays in and who stays out and sanctioning bad actors. Identity makes it so that harming a community has costs, and helping a community accrues trust. That's all it is.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    No, it is the downside. Everyone has 1 million different opinions that are going to be controversial to someone out there. I don't want it to be easy for anyone who disagrees with people, on anything, to track down someone physically, in real life. > Deciding who stays in and who stays Ok and I don't want you to be able to decide who stays in and stays out. It should be very difficult to keep others that you don't like out. And for the very extreme situations, that are exceptionally bad, we have the police and court system. You should only be able to "keep people out" of engaging in speech if their actions are so bad that you are literally willing to lock them up in prison for it.
    - Barrin92 6y ago
      >to track down someone physically, in real life. That's not the same as having a consistent identity on the internet. You can easily think of an identity provider on the web that doesn't expose who you physically are, think of like a crypto wallet, or something like Urbit attempts. Having a consistent identity is what matters with an incentive to be a good member, we don't need to expose your real world name at all. >It should be very difficult to keep others that you don't like out. No, it should be very easy to keep people out, because that's the fundamental mechanism behind any community, defining its borders and limits. That's what freedom of assembly is. There should be many different communities and they all should easily be able to set differentiated rules for who can participate and who can't. This is the basis for pluralism. A sort of free-wheeling over-connected hivemind like Twitter where it's either call the police or post what you want doesn't work precisely because it is not a community at all. The reason discourse has gone to hell is because there literally is only one and everyone's part of it. That's why we're having a somewhat sane conversation on hackernews right now. Because this community is smaller, it's moderated, and we can to a degree escape from the shitstorm of mass social media. And that's only because the rules here are much more strict than they are on Twitter.
      - caseysoftware 6y ago
        > No, it should be very easy to keep people out, because that's the fundamental mechanism behind any community, defining its borders and limits. That's what freedom of assembly is. There should be many different communities and they all should easily be able to set differentiated rules for who can participate and who can't. Sounds like you oppose Inclusion. For your sake, I hope no one finds that controversial.
      - stale2002 6y ago
        > That's not the same as having a consistent identity on the internet. Its effectively the same thing, for most people. If someone is only allowed to have 1 identity on the internet, then people would have to link it to their real life identity, for practical reasons. How else would people find me, when I want them to? Most people have a public identity, and other private ones. If I am only allowed to have 1 identity, then most people aren't going to give up the ability to have a public one, because there is large practical value to having a public identity. People only having 2 choice, choice 1 being to give up their public persona completely, or choice 2, having everything on the internet that they do, permanently linked to their public identity, is a horrible choice, that will have a huge chilling effect. > There should be many different communities Oh, if you want to participate in your own community, that require people to give you their government ID (Or crypto identity, or whatever) in order to participate, then I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with, is the authoritarian crazies, who want to take away other people's right to participate in the communities of their choosing. If most other people choose to participate in the normal internet, where most websites do not require you to have a singular ID, then leave us alone and let us do that. Go ahead and participate in your government ID facebook. (Or I guess that is just facebook already?) Just don't going around saying that no other communities, that value privacy more than you do, should be able to exist. > That's what freedom of assembly is. Freedom of assembly also includes people choosing to participate in communities where singular IDs are not a requirement, and alt accounts are allowed.

542458 6y ago

What about just requiring companies to identify paid messaging (like political ads: “Paid for by XYZ”)? Obviously this doesn’t solve any messaging coming from overseas, but it at least helps with companies with an American presence astroturfing their own reviews etc.

natosaichek 6y ago
Enforcement is the challenge. Without tracking down every reviewer, there is currently no way to determine whether a review was left by an employee of a covered/relevant company, or just a 'civilian.'
- RileyJames 6y ago
  5% of revenue. Don't need to catch many, or often, to get the message across. The cost has to outweigh the risk. If it's still prevalent after 5 years, double it.
  - banannaise 6y ago
    Don't take this as a serious criticism, but I look forward to the bizarro world where corporations compete to infiltrate and astroturf each other in ways that get their competitors fined into oblivion.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Try the same argument with something else: "Humans have always produced CO2 and cut down trees. The only things that have changed in past 1000 years are the sheer scale, speed, and cost of it."