7 ms·

Some argue linking real identities to online accounts will reduce, well, all negative activity. Facebook, Weibo and other smaller platforms around the world pr

by bserge 5y ago

Some argue linking real identities to online accounts will reduce, well, all negative activity. Facebook, Weibo and other smaller platforms around the world prove that's not going to happen. (Too) Many people are still going to be trash even with their actual identity out in the open. So just leave the Internet be, for the love of everything.

criddell 5y ago
> Some argue linking real identities to online accounts will reduce, well, all negative activity. I don't think anybody is arguing that it will reduce all negative activity, just some.
- BuildTheRobots 5y ago
  Is the plan to make real identities publically viewable? Seems like it's either a data breach waiting to happen or makes it much easier for the worst to dox and target people.
  - closeparen 5y ago
    The whole premise of “doxing” being a problem is that people have a right to say things on the internet that would get them in trouble in real life. I think the pro-real-names position would argue that it is net negative for society for people to have this ability, we should only be saying aloud what we are willing to put our reputations behind. I don’t agree with this position, but afaik that’s the position.
    - ellenhp 5y ago
      I know you said you don't agree but you left that position up without a rebuttal so here goes. What if someone managed to dump of the personal information of everyone in an online support group for LGBT folks and published it. That's doxxing too and this would do nothing to mitigate it.
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
        This isn't the 60s. Most LGBT in western democracies are out. But, yeah, there are exceptions and corner cases to everything. I believe the fundamental idea is that "real" life didn't used to be like that, nor is it today. You just don't see the stuff you see online happening at the corner store. And the difference is that it's people you might see again, or can call the police on, or just recognise as fellow humans. The problem of anonymity sometimes being required also isn't entirely new. There have long been guarantees (or attempts at such) of anonymity for situations where the need for it was generally acknowledged. In one such case, the organisation even adopted it as their name: Alcoholics Anonymous.
        pjc50 5y ago
        Trans people are not necessarily out, and are particularly subject to harrasment at the moment when outed as a particularly noisy and dangerous anti-trans campaign is going on on the UK internet. The people doing the harrasment do so under their own names.
        stevenicr 5y ago
        Also like to add that many "corner cases" would see less engagement - people would avoid getting mental help, support groups, religion questions, sexual health, etc if they worried it would be easy to be exposed.
    - hexa22 5y ago
      Doxing is far greater than being canceled for a reddit comment. An open source dev recently got doxed and had 4channers banging on their house windows at night. Swatting and similar activity is also an extreme problem.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        > An open source dev recently got doxed and had 4channers banging on their house windows at night. As far as I know, this hasn't been confirmed by anyone other than the dev themself yet. The personal information is also not in the archive, so someone (4chan staff or archive staff) did their job. We'll have to wait and see for the truth of that case, if it ever comes to light.
        stevenicr 5y ago
        I agree that great claims sometimes need great proof - and I am skeptical of that particular story. However I also agree with gp(?) swatting and similar is a problem. I've experienced these things from internet things - resulted in knocks on the door, 'certified letters' - and pics of my house posted online with people on said blog asking others to drive by and honk.. I'm talking three separate incidents by two or three different people for different reasons - all from internet. luckily for us it was more nerve racking that people were trying these things and nothing aside from the knocks became an issue - well one of them cost me a business relationship now that I think about it.
    - irthomasthomas 5y ago
      There is a strong desire in some to avoid fame. Anonymity solves that. Names risk fame.
    - handrous 5y ago
      I dislike the way the 'net has gone such that this kind of measure is probably inevitable—I prefer one that's anonymous-by-default where revealing your real identity is strongly discouraged by norms and it's hard to gain anything "real" by revealing it, anyway, so there's little incentive to—but on the anti-anonymity side, I'd agree it's pretty damn weird that we treat shouting crazy or abusive shit (or anything, really) into a world-reach megaphone with so little gravity, or expect anonymity when doing so.
    - shakna 5y ago
      > The whole premise of “doxing” being a problem is that people have a right to say things on the internet that would get them in trouble in real life. Mmm. In some cases terribly dangerous things to their health, like being gay in a country that forbids it. Or criticising a government that forbids it. Or saying something that only becomes illegal or publicly reprehensible after the fact.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I'd argue it's addressing the wrong criticism then. People should feel fine critiquing what a celebrity is wearing on social media: that's not toxic behavior, but having your real name inextricably linked to your account would definitely make you think twice. The real issue here is the dedicated toxic users: sites like 4chan and Kiwifarm for example. Those groups are typically responsible for the real damage we see on the internet, and there's likely no way for us to ever flush them out. It's a cat-and-mouse game that cannot be won, only indefinitely postponed (which is a victory in their books).
  - akomtu 5y ago
    What damage? They sit on 4chan and whatever they say stays there.
    - stevenicr 5y ago
      that may be true for some there - but I can attest that indeed there are groups there that have every intent and a history of proof of real world damages. from ddos attacks to the 4chan party van - these things can escalate quickly beyond control and have real world consequences. I've seen it actually happen more than once.
jimkleiber 5y ago
For me, the problem with anonymous identities online is that laws (at least in the US) surrounding defamation and other ways to regulate human interaction seem based on a real identity. Without that, I'm not sure how those and similar laws can be enforced on the internet. One could argue that they shouldn't be and that's maybe a separate conversation, but for example, right now, if someone defames me in person, I can sue them and if they defame me on the internet under anonymity, and I don't think I can (yes they can be anonymous in person but I think it's much more difficult).
- reedjosh 5y ago
  > One could argue that they shouldn't be and that's maybe a separate conversation Yes, it's probably a separate conversation, but I don't think we should give these bad laws more teeth.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Strong agreement here. The principle driver of antisocial behaviour online seems to be impunity, immunity, and/or disinhibition. Anonymity and/or pseudonymity are related, but nowhere near identical. As Yonatan Zunger, chief architect of Google+ (and now an ex-Googler) pointed out, compulsory identification amplifies rather than removes power relationships. This is his principle (and IMO devastating) response to David Brin's Transparent Society argument. Minorities and the disempowered obliged to identify themselves lose even more power in the bargain. What empowers abuse is the ability to inflict harm without perception of risk, whether that perception is accurate or not. Disinhibition reduces perception whilst overall risk remains high. (The concept is captured in the word "assassin", deriving from the Arabic, hashīshīn, referencing hashhish --- assassins had reduced inhibitions through pharmaceutical influence.) Legal immunity, the cover of a crowd, operating extrajurisdictionally, cover of a state or other significant actor, or simple mass delusions can all provide the reality or appearance of impunity. Mandating identity itself creates new avenues for abuse, including the revoking of official credentials, bureaucratic incompetence, bribery, and the potential of a "permanent archive" of all accesses (already substantially present through numerous mechanisms) which can be mined at arbitrary future dates, but as-yet unknown entities with as-yet unknown motives. I'll note that I'm one of numerous reasonably-well-know pseudonymous HN members.
- meowkit 5y ago
  This is well stated. In case you read this reply, have you looked into decentralized identifiers (DIDs)? Any thoughts?
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I'm (maybe) composing my own set of suggestions to Neil. A substantial bit of that is TL;DR: credible assertions of characteristics (or rights or responsibilities) might offer some solution-shaped objects. But in many cases, there's no reasonable way to accomodate identity / credential / characteristic assertion into data flows (e.g., commandline tools, proxies).
- Igelau 5y ago
  > buttbuttin Fixed that for you. There might be young readers here who haven't verified their ages.
Igelau 5y ago
> people are still going to be trash even with their actual identity out in the open This is what shocked the hell out of me as older Gen X and Boomers got into Facebook. I remember one instance I saw where there was quite a lot of nastiness regarding a series of fights that broke out on a cruise ship off of Australia. Someone involved in it posted a video that his father then shared on Facebook. Then some dude starts posting all these vile racist comments (apparently anti-Lebanese racism is a big problem there) under it. REAL NAME. Basically calling a whole ethnic group criminals on the page of someone whose own son was quite possibly in danger. I got... curious. I clicked on Racist Dude's profile. Sure enough everything was set to public. He had pictures of his kids. Their names too. Then I got more curious. Less than 5 minutes on Google and I knew what extracurricular activities they were involved in and when they were likely to be there. I felt a little sick at how easy it was to -- can you even call it doxxing when it all hanging out like that?? Anyway, I kept my mouth shut, logged out, tuned out, dropped out. I still wonder what Racist Dude's best case scenario was there. Even if his vile opinions were 100% true... congratulations on insulting a large family of criminals while exposing everything about yourself?? It boggles the mind. Don't ever try to steelman the ravings of a psychopath.
- freeseoul 5y ago
  It's not called doxxing if you actually had their real life information to start with. You need to be linking an anonymous identity with another that is not. In this case you linked his identity to his address. That's not doxxing, that's just finding out his information. People misuse the term however to be "any secret thing I found out about someone on the internet".
- true_religion 5y ago
  See that’s the the thing… racists, sexists, and others of their ilk are proud to be themselves. They have political motive. They want society to be reorganized according to their ideals, and they don’t see anything wrong with themselves or any reason to hide. Even people who smoke joints are more surreptitious than racists.
- stevenicr 5y ago
  I've seen similar - in neighbor group, posting they wanted X place to burn to the ground and wouldn't mind if they people went with it. real name, public profile - showed she was a 10 year firefighter in previous town. I mean - how dumb on top of overly crass can someone be in a public forum? Mind blown that day - and it's not the only case I'm sure there are many every day on the interweb.
nathias 5y ago
if anything, facebook showed that the internet gets a lot worse when people are using real identities
CogitoCogito 5y ago
> Some argue linking real identities to online accounts will reduce, well, all negative activity. > Facebook, Weibo and other smaller platforms around the world prove that's not going to happen. I don't think it's worth taking the entities' arguments seriously when linking real identities also just happens to make them a lot of money. It's clearly just a smokescreen for their true monetary intentions.
specialist 5y ago
This UK effort is for identifying consumers, not publishers. Right? As for authenticating publishers, I think HTTPS is a terrific idea. If some don't want to sign their content, fine. I'll adjust my esteem for them accordingly.

by bserge 5y ago

criddell 5y ago

> Some argue linking real identities to online accounts will reduce, well, all negative activity. I don't think anybody is arguing that it will reduce all negative activity, just some.

BuildTheRobots 5y ago
Is the plan to make real identities publically viewable? Seems like it's either a data breach waiting to happen or makes it much easier for the worst to dox and target people.
- closeparen 5y ago
  The whole premise of “doxing” being a problem is that people have a right to say things on the internet that would get them in trouble in real life. I think the pro-real-names position would argue that it is net negative for society for people to have this ability, we should only be saying aloud what we are willing to put our reputations behind. I don’t agree with this position, but afaik that’s the position.
  - ellenhp 5y ago
    I know you said you don't agree but you left that position up without a rebuttal so here goes. What if someone managed to dump of the personal information of everyone in an online support group for LGBT folks and published it. That's doxxing too and this would do nothing to mitigate it.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
      This isn't the 60s. Most LGBT in western democracies are out. But, yeah, there are exceptions and corner cases to everything. I believe the fundamental idea is that "real" life didn't used to be like that, nor is it today. You just don't see the stuff you see online happening at the corner store. And the difference is that it's people you might see again, or can call the police on, or just recognise as fellow humans. The problem of anonymity sometimes being required also isn't entirely new. There have long been guarantees (or attempts at such) of anonymity for situations where the need for it was generally acknowledged. In one such case, the organisation even adopted it as their name: Alcoholics Anonymous.
      - pjc50 5y ago
        Trans people are not necessarily out, and are particularly subject to harrasment at the moment when outed as a particularly noisy and dangerous anti-trans campaign is going on on the UK internet. The people doing the harrasment do so under their own names.
      - stevenicr 5y ago
        Also like to add that many "corner cases" would see less engagement - people would avoid getting mental help, support groups, religion questions, sexual health, etc if they worried it would be easy to be exposed.
  - hexa22 5y ago
    Doxing is far greater than being canceled for a reddit comment. An open source dev recently got doxed and had 4channers banging on their house windows at night. Swatting and similar activity is also an extreme problem.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      > An open source dev recently got doxed and had 4channers banging on their house windows at night. As far as I know, this hasn't been confirmed by anyone other than the dev themself yet. The personal information is also not in the archive, so someone (4chan staff or archive staff) did their job. We'll have to wait and see for the truth of that case, if it ever comes to light.
      - stevenicr 5y ago
        I agree that great claims sometimes need great proof - and I am skeptical of that particular story. However I also agree with gp(?) swatting and similar is a problem. I've experienced these things from internet things - resulted in knocks on the door, 'certified letters' - and pics of my house posted online with people on said blog asking others to drive by and honk.. I'm talking three separate incidents by two or three different people for different reasons - all from internet. luckily for us it was more nerve racking that people were trying these things and nothing aside from the knocks became an issue - well one of them cost me a business relationship now that I think about it.
  - irthomasthomas 5y ago
    There is a strong desire in some to avoid fame. Anonymity solves that. Names risk fame.
  - handrous 5y ago
    I dislike the way the 'net has gone such that this kind of measure is probably inevitable—I prefer one that's anonymous-by-default where revealing your real identity is strongly discouraged by norms and it's hard to gain anything "real" by revealing it, anyway, so there's little incentive to—but on the anti-anonymity side, I'd agree it's pretty damn weird that we treat shouting crazy or abusive shit (or anything, really) into a world-reach megaphone with so little gravity, or expect anonymity when doing so.
  - shakna 5y ago
    > The whole premise of “doxing” being a problem is that people have a right to say things on the internet that would get them in trouble in real life. Mmm. In some cases terribly dangerous things to their health, like being gay in a country that forbids it. Or criticising a government that forbids it. Or saying something that only becomes illegal or publicly reprehensible after the fact.
smoldesu 5y ago
I'd argue it's addressing the wrong criticism then. People should feel fine critiquing what a celebrity is wearing on social media: that's not toxic behavior, but having your real name inextricably linked to your account would definitely make you think twice. The real issue here is the dedicated toxic users: sites like 4chan and Kiwifarm for example. Those groups are typically responsible for the real damage we see on the internet, and there's likely no way for us to ever flush them out. It's a cat-and-mouse game that cannot be won, only indefinitely postponed (which is a victory in their books).
- akomtu 5y ago
  What damage? They sit on 4chan and whatever they say stays there.
  - stevenicr 5y ago
    that may be true for some there - but I can attest that indeed there are groups there that have every intent and a history of proof of real world damages. from ddos attacks to the 4chan party van - these things can escalate quickly beyond control and have real world consequences. I've seen it actually happen more than once.

jimkleiber 5y ago

For me, the problem with anonymous identities online is that laws (at least in the US) surrounding defamation and other ways to regulate human interaction seem based on a real identity. Without that, I'm not sure how those and similar laws can be enforced on the internet. One could argue that they shouldn't be and that's maybe a separate conversation, but for example, right now, if someone defames me in person, I can sue them and if they defame me on the internet under anonymity, and I don't think I can (yes they can be anonymous in person but I think it's much more difficult).

reedjosh 5y ago
> One could argue that they shouldn't be and that's maybe a separate conversation Yes, it's probably a separate conversation, but I don't think we should give these bad laws more teeth.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Strong agreement here. The principle driver of antisocial behaviour online seems to be impunity, immunity, and/or disinhibition. Anonymity and/or pseudonymity are related, but nowhere near identical. As Yonatan Zunger, chief architect of Google+ (and now an ex-Googler) pointed out, compulsory identification amplifies rather than removes power relationships. This is his principle (and IMO devastating) response to David Brin's Transparent Society argument. Minorities and the disempowered obliged to identify themselves lose even more power in the bargain. What empowers abuse is the ability to inflict harm without perception of risk, whether that perception is accurate or not. Disinhibition reduces perception whilst overall risk remains high. (The concept is captured in the word "assassin", deriving from the Arabic, hashīshīn, referencing hashhish --- assassins had reduced inhibitions through pharmaceutical influence.) Legal immunity, the cover of a crowd, operating extrajurisdictionally, cover of a state or other significant actor, or simple mass delusions can all provide the reality or appearance of impunity. Mandating identity itself creates new avenues for abuse, including the revoking of official credentials, bureaucratic incompetence, bribery, and the potential of a "permanent archive" of all accesses (already substantially present through numerous mechanisms) which can be mined at arbitrary future dates, but as-yet unknown entities with as-yet unknown motives. I'll note that I'm one of numerous reasonably-well-know pseudonymous HN members.

meowkit 5y ago
This is well stated. In case you read this reply, have you looked into decentralized identifiers (DIDs)? Any thoughts?
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  I'm (maybe) composing my own set of suggestions to Neil. A substantial bit of that is TL;DR: credible assertions of characteristics (or rights or responsibilities) might offer some solution-shaped objects. But in many cases, there's no reasonable way to accomodate identity / credential / characteristic assertion into data flows (e.g., commandline tools, proxies).
Igelau 5y ago
> buttbuttin Fixed that for you. There might be young readers here who haven't verified their ages.

Igelau 5y ago

> people are still going to be trash even with their actual identity out in the open This is what shocked the hell out of me as older Gen X and Boomers got into Facebook. I remember one instance I saw where there was quite a lot of nastiness regarding a series of fights that broke out on a cruise ship off of Australia. Someone involved in it posted a video that his father then shared on Facebook. Then some dude starts posting all these vile racist comments (apparently anti-Lebanese racism is a big problem there) under it. REAL NAME. Basically calling a whole ethnic group criminals on the page of someone whose own son was quite possibly in danger. I got... curious. I clicked on Racist Dude's profile. Sure enough everything was set to public. He had pictures of his kids. Their names too. Then I got more curious. Less than 5 minutes on Google and I knew what extracurricular activities they were involved in and when they were likely to be there. I felt a little sick at how easy it was to -- can you even call it doxxing when it all hanging out like that?? Anyway, I kept my mouth shut, logged out, tuned out, dropped out. I still wonder what Racist Dude's best case scenario was there. Even if his vile opinions were 100% true... congratulations on insulting a large family of criminals while exposing everything about yourself?? It boggles the mind. Don't ever try to steelman the ravings of a psychopath.

freeseoul 5y ago
It's not called doxxing if you actually had their real life information to start with. You need to be linking an anonymous identity with another that is not. In this case you linked his identity to his address. That's not doxxing, that's just finding out his information. People misuse the term however to be "any secret thing I found out about someone on the internet".
true_religion 5y ago
See that’s the the thing… racists, sexists, and others of their ilk are proud to be themselves. They have political motive. They want society to be reorganized according to their ideals, and they don’t see anything wrong with themselves or any reason to hide. Even people who smoke joints are more surreptitious than racists.
stevenicr 5y ago
I've seen similar - in neighbor group, posting they wanted X place to burn to the ground and wouldn't mind if they people went with it. real name, public profile - showed she was a 10 year firefighter in previous town. I mean - how dumb on top of overly crass can someone be in a public forum? Mind blown that day - and it's not the only case I'm sure there are many every day on the interweb.

nathias 5y ago

if anything, facebook showed that the internet gets a lot worse when people are using real identities

CogitoCogito 5y ago

> Some argue linking real identities to online accounts will reduce, well, all negative activity. > Facebook, Weibo and other smaller platforms around the world prove that's not going to happen. I don't think it's worth taking the entities' arguments seriously when linking real identities also just happens to make them a lot of money. It's clearly just a smokescreen for their true monetary intentions.

specialist 5y ago

This UK effort is for identifying consumers, not publishers. Right? As for authenticating publishers, I think HTTPS is a terrific idea. If some don't want to sign their content, fine. I'll adjust my esteem for them accordingly.