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No, there is no silver bullet. Yes, banning anonymity is dumb idea. Also, opt-in authenticated identity is necessary. It's ridiculous that bots, trolls, and

No, there is no silver bullet. Yes, banning anonymity is dumb idea. Also, opt-in authenticated identity is necessary. It's ridiculous that bots, trolls, and sockpuppets are given the same esteem and protections as real people. To curtail harassment, nerf the outrage machine (algorithmic newsfeeds) and ad revenue biz models.

xanaxagoras 5y ago
Depends on the platform. On Reddit for example, I'd rather hear from the bots, trolls and sockpuppets.
- specialist 5y ago
  Heh. Examples or recommendations? I'm fine with bots if they're obviously bots. I think it was US Senator Mark Warner that proposed that reform.
colpabar 5y ago
>It's ridiculous that bots, trolls, and sockpuppets are given the same esteem and protections as real people. Agreed. I think any talk of the problems of online anonymity should be focused on bots first and foremost. From my understanding, it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users. Can't we go after those instead? I don't really care that real people online can be mean anonymously, because at the end of the day, it's just one person. But an army of bots? That has a much stronger affect, especially when they all amplify each other's posts and game the algorithms so that they get promoted and seen by more people. Any talk of the "dangers of online anonymity" that isn't about bots is just a deceptive way of arguing for more online surveillance. This example seems especially egregious, because they're somehow using an MP's murder to push it even though it has literally nothing to do with it.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > I think any talk of the problems of online anonymity should be focused on bots first and foremost. From my understanding, it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users. Can't we go after those instead? I don't really care that real people online can be mean anonymously, because at the end of the day, it's just one person. Strong disagree in that I think most of the problems people identify with FB are due to the collective actions of mostly real people in conversation.
- bell-cot 5y ago
  While banning ~90% of the bots sounds pretty good to me - how long would it take the folks behind those now-banned bots to replace them, with new & "improved" & less easily detected bots?
  - ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
    Part of a sophisticated bot-banning operation is then trying your damned hardest to make it as hard as possible for the bot itself to detect that it's been detected. Dunno how actually successful those efforts are, but people try!!!
  - colpabar 5y ago
    Of course people will come back with more sophisticated bots, that's inevitable. That happens with everything: bad thing is happening, we figure out how to protect against bad thing, bad people figure out how to get past protection, rinse and repeat. My point was more that bots are way more harmful than real people online, and any policy on online anonymity intended to "help" people should be focused almost entirely on bots, not people.
- saddlerustle 5y ago
  > it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users How to tell someone’s never worked on anti-abuse at scale
  - liquidise 5y ago
    That's unfair. I was in charge of anti-abuse for a dating site with millions of users and my gut reaction was "just 90%?". The problem with anti-abuse at scale isn't catching the 90-99%. It is the remaining 1%. Have 10M abuse accounts with a 99% success rate and you are left with 100k spam accounts. That, and making sure you aren't catching too many innocent customers in your efforts.
  - specialist 5y ago
    Why is it hard? I have some experience with demographic databases. I take it as a given that Facebook, NSA, whomever, have uniquely identified every person, living and dead. I just don't understand how or why fake accounts are created. Smaller outfits like metafilter need some kind of gatekeeper. Like require nominal fee or scan of ID or verification photo.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bilbo0s 5y ago
>To curtail harassment, nerf the outrage machine (algorithmic newsfeeds) and ad revenue biz models. Speaking only on the money side of this, that is a very easy (and popular) thing to say, but a very difficult thing to do. How would you support these services without the ad revenue business model? Most of the other business models people have tried do not pay the salaries of the network operations people required to run the service. And I can only imagine that even today people are still going to be reticent to pay for most of the social media services they get online. Most will just wait for another free social media service to come along. To rid ourselves of ad revenue based business models and algorithms, we need to find, and prove, new business models that work at scale. They don't have to rake in as much money as ads, but they do need to pay for operations and the resultant salaries. And that's not a small amount of money at scale.
- specialist 5y ago
  Who has a right to profit? Especially when profit comes from harm. I believe but cannot prove than most targeted advertising is fraudulant. When whistleblowers leak those metrics, this might be a self correcting problem. Meanwhile... There are plenty of other ways to run a business. metafilter, craigslist, ravelery.org, others do well, without harming their users.
hatchnyc 5y ago
> nerf the outrage machine (algorithmic newsfeeds) Yes, if my feed is composed entire of accounts I follow sorted by date descending, there is little to no opportunity nor incentive for bots to exist at all. Sure, our proverbial crazy uncle is still going to send out conspiracy theories to everyone in his contacts, but this has existed forever and never seemed to cause that much trouble compared to algorithmic newsfeeds. Even if you include results from followed topics sorted by explicit upvotes, so long as there's none of these inferred engagement metrics used in ranking then the blast radius of a malicious account will be severely limited as it's a lot harder to game explicitly expressed user intent.
- specialist 5y ago
  Totally agree. If UX of social media was like a RSS newsreader, I'd mosdef use it on the daily. Yes and: Nerfing could be as modest as dialing down virality. Like maybe a rate regulator. IIRC, the velocity of rage posting is way greater than puppies and kittens. So just slow that crap down. Or just don't turbo boost it to big with.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Exactly. It would be cool to opt-in and only see other authenticated users. We keep talking about freedom to be anonymous and freedom of speech, but what about my freedom to not use a totally ratfucked web where I cannot trust anybody?

xanaxagoras 5y ago

Depends on the platform. On Reddit for example, I'd rather hear from the bots, trolls and sockpuppets.

specialist 5y ago
Heh. Examples or recommendations? I'm fine with bots if they're obviously bots. I think it was US Senator Mark Warner that proposed that reform.

colpabar 5y ago

>It's ridiculous that bots, trolls, and sockpuppets are given the same esteem and protections as real people. Agreed. I think any talk of the problems of online anonymity should be focused on bots first and foremost. From my understanding, it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users. Can't we go after those instead? I don't really care that real people online can be mean anonymously, because at the end of the day, it's just one person. But an army of bots? That has a much stronger affect, especially when they all amplify each other's posts and game the algorithms so that they get promoted and seen by more people. Any talk of the "dangers of online anonymity" that isn't about bots is just a deceptive way of arguing for more online surveillance. This example seems especially egregious, because they're somehow using an MP's murder to push it even though it has literally nothing to do with it.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> I think any talk of the problems of online anonymity should be focused on bots first and foremost. From my understanding, it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users. Can't we go after those instead? I don't really care that real people online can be mean anonymously, because at the end of the day, it's just one person. Strong disagree in that I think most of the problems people identify with FB are due to the collective actions of mostly real people in conversation.
bell-cot 5y ago
While banning ~90% of the bots sounds pretty good to me - how long would it take the folks behind those now-banned bots to replace them, with new & "improved" & less easily detected bots?
- ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
  Part of a sophisticated bot-banning operation is then trying your damned hardest to make it as hard as possible for the bot itself to detect that it's been detected. Dunno how actually successful those efforts are, but people try!!!
- colpabar 5y ago
  Of course people will come back with more sophisticated bots, that's inevitable. That happens with everything: bad thing is happening, we figure out how to protect against bad thing, bad people figure out how to get past protection, rinse and repeat. My point was more that bots are way more harmful than real people online, and any policy on online anonymity intended to "help" people should be focused almost entirely on bots, not people.
saddlerustle 5y ago
> it's pretty easy to detect like 90% of bot users How to tell someone’s never worked on anti-abuse at scale
- liquidise 5y ago
  That's unfair. I was in charge of anti-abuse for a dating site with millions of users and my gut reaction was "just 90%?". The problem with anti-abuse at scale isn't catching the 90-99%. It is the remaining 1%. Have 10M abuse accounts with a 99% success rate and you are left with 100k spam accounts. That, and making sure you aren't catching too many innocent customers in your efforts.
- specialist 5y ago
  Why is it hard? I have some experience with demographic databases. I take it as a given that Facebook, NSA, whomever, have uniquely identified every person, living and dead. I just don't understand how or why fake accounts are created. Smaller outfits like metafilter need some kind of gatekeeper. Like require nominal fee or scan of ID or verification photo.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

bilbo0s 5y ago

>To curtail harassment, nerf the outrage machine (algorithmic newsfeeds) and ad revenue biz models. Speaking only on the money side of this, that is a very easy (and popular) thing to say, but a very difficult thing to do. How would you support these services without the ad revenue business model? Most of the other business models people have tried do not pay the salaries of the network operations people required to run the service. And I can only imagine that even today people are still going to be reticent to pay for most of the social media services they get online. Most will just wait for another free social media service to come along. To rid ourselves of ad revenue based business models and algorithms, we need to find, and prove, new business models that work at scale. They don't have to rake in as much money as ads, but they do need to pay for operations and the resultant salaries. And that's not a small amount of money at scale.

specialist 5y ago
Who has a right to profit? Especially when profit comes from harm. I believe but cannot prove than most targeted advertising is fraudulant. When whistleblowers leak those metrics, this might be a self correcting problem. Meanwhile... There are plenty of other ways to run a business. metafilter, craigslist, ravelery.org, others do well, without harming their users.

hatchnyc 5y ago

> nerf the outrage machine (algorithmic newsfeeds) Yes, if my feed is composed entire of accounts I follow sorted by date descending, there is little to no opportunity nor incentive for bots to exist at all. Sure, our proverbial crazy uncle is still going to send out conspiracy theories to everyone in his contacts, but this has existed forever and never seemed to cause that much trouble compared to algorithmic newsfeeds. Even if you include results from followed topics sorted by explicit upvotes, so long as there's none of these inferred engagement metrics used in ranking then the blast radius of a malicious account will be severely limited as it's a lot harder to game explicitly expressed user intent.

specialist 5y ago
Totally agree. If UX of social media was like a RSS newsreader, I'd mosdef use it on the daily. Yes and: Nerfing could be as modest as dialing down virality. Like maybe a rate regulator. IIRC, the velocity of rage posting is way greater than puppies and kittens. So just slow that crap down. Or just don't turbo boost it to big with.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

Exactly. It would be cool to opt-in and only see other authenticated users. We keep talking about freedom to be anonymous and freedom of speech, but what about my freedom to not use a totally ratfucked web where I cannot trust anybody?