4 ms·

> And Ms Patel indicated she is considering going a step further by requiring sites such as Facebook or Twitter to retain details of the identities of people po

> And Ms Patel indicated she is considering going a step further by requiring sites such as Facebook or Twitter to retain details of the identities of people posting material which could be handed over to police investigating crimes. I don't see how social media anonymity == internet anonymity?

thr0wawayf00 5y ago
I have a feeling this will hit the same wall that US law enforcement found as school shootings started taking off here. This will generate tons of noise for law enforcement that they cannot effectively find the true signals of those intending to commit violence as opposed to those that are just angry and like to vent online. There are just too many people posting angry stuff on social media these days to find the actually violent people. Whenever horrific school shootings happen, the media immediately looks at the attacker's social media and wonders why law enforcement didn't catch them ahead of time; this is why. And since a crime hasn't yet been committed, there isn't much law enforcement can do to obtain a warrant (at least up until now). And even if they find someone that they suspect might commit a crime, they can't just hold that person indefinitely. They either need to have enough evidence to prosecute or let the target go. Suggestions like this don't actually solve the problem, they just shift the blame elsewhere.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  I see your point re noise - the case here is a lot simpler I believe: Being able to prosecute effectively anonymous death threats (which is a criminal offence in most jurisdictions) made via social media. While not trivial it is fairly straightforward to get an anonymous e.g. FB account and a VPN and you are practically invisible to law enforcement. I suspect you don't even need the VPN for less serious offences.
  - thr0wawayf00 5y ago
    The problem is that a lot of what people post falls into more of a gray area than legally bulletproof death threat. This is the problem with dog-whistling[0] generally, it's very easy to make statements that you can later deny the intent of, which makes them hard to prosecute. For example, how would law enforcement go after someone who repeatedly said something like "Someone needs to take care of John Q. Politician because he's ruining the country"? That's just not legally sound enough to preemptively arrest the poster of that statement, but so many people talk that way online. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)
    - Pyramus 5y ago
      That won't change. Legally grey will remain legally grey. What I'm saying is there is low hanging fruit: Clearly illegal death threats that are posted by anonymous accounts and therefore not/hardly enforceable.

thr0wawayf00 5y ago

I have a feeling this will hit the same wall that US law enforcement found as school shootings started taking off here. This will generate tons of noise for law enforcement that they cannot effectively find the true signals of those intending to commit violence as opposed to those that are just angry and like to vent online. There are just too many people posting angry stuff on social media these days to find the actually violent people. Whenever horrific school shootings happen, the media immediately looks at the attacker's social media and wonders why law enforcement didn't catch them ahead of time; this is why. And since a crime hasn't yet been committed, there isn't much law enforcement can do to obtain a warrant (at least up until now). And even if they find someone that they suspect might commit a crime, they can't just hold that person indefinitely. They either need to have enough evidence to prosecute or let the target go. Suggestions like this don't actually solve the problem, they just shift the blame elsewhere.

Pyramus 5y ago
I see your point re noise - the case here is a lot simpler I believe: Being able to prosecute effectively anonymous death threats (which is a criminal offence in most jurisdictions) made via social media. While not trivial it is fairly straightforward to get an anonymous e.g. FB account and a VPN and you are practically invisible to law enforcement. I suspect you don't even need the VPN for less serious offences.
- thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  The problem is that a lot of what people post falls into more of a gray area than legally bulletproof death threat. This is the problem with dog-whistling[0] generally, it's very easy to make statements that you can later deny the intent of, which makes them hard to prosecute. For example, how would law enforcement go after someone who repeatedly said something like "Someone needs to take care of John Q. Politician because he's ruining the country"? That's just not legally sound enough to preemptively arrest the poster of that statement, but so many people talk that way online. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    That won't change. Legally grey will remain legally grey. What I'm saying is there is low hanging fruit: Clearly illegal death threats that are posted by anonymous accounts and therefore not/hardly enforceable.