7 ms·

But retribution is an important social construct. Sometimes, you speak your mind and get retribution. Sometimes you deserve it however if you are not getting a

by mrtksn 5y ago

But retribution is an important social construct. Sometimes, you speak your mind and get retribution. Sometimes you deserve it however if you are not getting a fair one people side with you. I know that this is very unpopular opinion but there are very few cases where anonymity is useful. The rest is mostly useful for the abusive ones. Instead of banning people and removing content, I would prefer losing anonymity. I actually think that we can have the best of both worlds. What if we remain anonymous to the discussion parties but guaranteed linked identity to the systems that host us? If someone does something very bad, the identity could be revealed, i.e. doxxed. This way, many can self watch their behavior and remain anonymous. So when the time comes and you post something objectionable or the mods flag you, the system can present you the option to remove your last post and lock your account OR override the mods, keep the content and reveal your identity. It’s a shame that the current norm of dealing with people on the internet is to remove their content and lock them out. In my opinion, everyone should be guaranteed right to speak. If the the thing they do is illegal, punish them through the legal system but don’t silence them.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
q1w2 5y ago
Maybe it would be interesting to have different platforms that have different levels of anonymity so that we can see what sort of conversations would form differently. We also have to remember that internationally, the standards for what is acceptable speech is wildly different, so de-anonymization can literally cause people to be imprisoned and/or killed. In my opinion, highly moderated forums tend to have their conversations reduced to low-value self-reinforcing memes/jokes/self-congratulations/hate-for-the-other-party. But more importantly, there are certain truths that would go unspoken in a completely de-anonymous internet. ...and as forum providers consolidate ever-closer to governments, that class of illegal words gets larger.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  > We also have to remember that internationally, the standards for what is acceptable speech is wildly different, so de-anonymization can literally cause people to be imprisoned and/or killed. That’s the one of the few rare cases where anonymity is important. Add whistlelowers etc. to the mix but these are edge cases that can have specialized mechanisms. For many cases the default approach could be good enough though. Your identity will be encrypted in the system and when the moderators of a specific platform think that you are a trouble, they lock you and remove your content but they don’t know your identity. It’s up to you to unlock your account by revealing your identity. So, you can simply post to places that are not hostile to you and you stay anonymous. Russians journalists can post to American forums for example.
tomp 5y ago
> Instead of banning people and removing content, I would prefer losing anonymity. It's not either/or. It's none/both.
colordrops 5y ago
> I know that this is very unpopular opinion but there are very few cases where anonymity is useful. This just isn't true. It makes the assumption that what you will be shamed or punished for saying is completely in line with what is right. No way is that the case, whether you are talking about drugs, gender and sexuality issues, unpopular political ideas, or a host of other things. Your argument is no different from those who claim that only those who have done something wrong care about privacy. It's wrong.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  So what if you are ashamed? it’s human nature, you face it and move on. If you think that it’s something that it’s not to be ashamed, you defend your position. I also suggested a mechanism to stay anonymous as long as you are not causing problems. If you need the anonymity, simply go that route.
  - nobody9999 5y ago
    >I also suggested a mechanism to stay anonymous as long as you are not causing problems. And who decides what constitutes "causing problems?" While the vast majority of us (at least I hope so) would agree that violence and murder focused on a particular ethnic, religious or other group is a "problem," most other things have much less widespread support. I have some fairly unpopular ideas, as well as some that are more readily accepted. Should I be doxxed for expressing the thought that all drugs should be legal? For complaining vociferously about the business models of big social media companies? In fact, it doesn't really matter what position I take on pretty much anything (vi vs. emacs, vanilla vs. chocolate ice cream, pandemic policies, etc., etc., etc.), there are those who will disagree -- sometimes with respectful argument/discussion, sometimes with hyperbole and personal attacks, and depending on the topic, even with violence. There are some places in the US where criticizing Trump could get me ostracized, beaten or killed. And yet other places where taking the opposite position could have a similar effect. The hundred or so Hong Kong journalists and activists that are sitting in jails for advocating that the government adhere to its own constitution are there because they were "causing problems." And so I'll pose my question again: Who decides whether or not you, I or anyone else is "causing problems?"
fouric 5y ago
> retribution is an important social construct I would like to see evidence to back up your claim - evidence that supports the extension of this idea from the real world to the internet, because you don't get that for free. Moreover, I can think of far more examples of retribution causing harm in the real world than doing good. Bullying in school, being fired for whistleblowing, being jailed or executed for wrongthink in China, getting slammed with jail time for uncovering criminally bad security on some website, losing your job because a mob on Twitter saw a doctored video of you doing something they didn't like... Are all of these "very few cases where anonymity is useful"? > What if we remain anonymous to the discussion parties but guaranteed linked identity to the systems that host us? That still enables every most of the above abuses - which also happen to be the worse ones. If you don't have even the potential for anonymity on the internet, then you get suppression of speech by tyrannical governments. > If someone does something very bad, the identity could be revealed, i.e. doxxed This reads as an ad for mob justice - and even if it weren't, this mechanism would absolutely still be exploited to that effect.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  The real life interactions are much more civil because of the fact that being an a*hole gets retribution from the person you are being an a*hole to or from the society. Perfectly nice people turn into psychos when they interact with people online. Observe kids playing games in real life, they are very rarely as vulgar or sadistic as on online games. A walk even in the most crowded places is much nicer experience that an anonymous online place. Oh and yes, the very few cases where anonymity is useful are exactly that kind of cases(whistleblowing, journalism targeting powerful figures etc.). These are rarities and are valuable but %99 of the discussion on the internet are not about these and I suggested a mechanism for anonymity anyway.
  - naravara 5y ago
    > Observe kids playing games in real life, they are very rarely as vulgar or sadistic as on online games. Kids are actually rarely vulgar or sadistic when playing online as well. The toxicity of online gaming communities is a self-reinforcing feedback loop. The toxic kids find a home and either drive all the nice kids out with their toxicity or prompt the nice kids to adapt and internalize toxic ways of engaging. It's not an inherent feature of kids themselves and plenty of online games that were explicitly targeted at children have been perfectly fine without epidemics of griefing or abuse as long as they constrain kids to playing within their own friend-groups rather than against strangers. Most of the foulest people are actually adults with jobs or surly teenagers. The kids are fine.
lm28469 5y ago
> there are very few cases where anonymity is useful. The rest is mostly useful for the abusive ones. As long as you don't talk about anything not following the official lines and/or the mainstream ideology, sure... there are many topics which are effectively banned and will get you punished one way or another for just mentioning them
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Currently, if you say something unpopular you will be downvoted and your speech will be hidden from the rest on most platforms. You can also be silenced completely by getting banned. I am proposing a mechanism to overcome this kind of censorship in exchange of your anonymity in case you had a problem with the management. If you get banned, if your posts are removed and you believe in what you say, you put your reputation on the line by revealing your identity and override account locks and content removal.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    What if your employer find your messages and decide he doesn't want to associate with you ? Same for landlords &c. Having everything you say attached to your name forever seems extremely icky (we both know that "banned" and "deleted" don't mean anything on the internet). In an hypothetical perfect world with hypothetical perfectly rational people why not, in the mess we live in it would be a nightmare.
    - mrtksn 5y ago
      With the mechanism I'm proposing, you get to keep your identity hidden as long as you are a good citizen of the platform you participate. If you can't stand for the things you say, and they are problematic for the platform you simply don't say them then. In the current system it's exactly the same situation, if your stuff are not O.K. they get removed which is effectively the same as you not saying it. I don't know why people feel entitled to say something without facing the consequences of it. If you don't believe in it enough to defend your position and put forward your reputation, you don't need to say it. Why do you need to deceive people? Let's say, you are a racist and feel very strongly to say something about your opinions. Say it and win the argument and improve your life or say it and lose the argument and people can choose not to be associated with you. That's a fair situation, what's not fair is to annoy people or maybe even harm them from another persona and then pretend that you are something else.
tomjen3 5y ago
>But retribution is an important social construct Within friend groups, yes. On the internet I don't think it makes sense, simply because what is acceptable within different groups is so different.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
I'm signing up for that service with fake information.

by mrtksn 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

q1w2 5y ago

Maybe it would be interesting to have different platforms that have different levels of anonymity so that we can see what sort of conversations would form differently. We also have to remember that internationally, the standards for what is acceptable speech is wildly different, so de-anonymization can literally cause people to be imprisoned and/or killed. In my opinion, highly moderated forums tend to have their conversations reduced to low-value self-reinforcing memes/jokes/self-congratulations/hate-for-the-other-party. But more importantly, there are certain truths that would go unspoken in a completely de-anonymous internet. ...and as forum providers consolidate ever-closer to governments, that class of illegal words gets larger.

mrtksn 5y ago
> We also have to remember that internationally, the standards for what is acceptable speech is wildly different, so de-anonymization can literally cause people to be imprisoned and/or killed. That’s the one of the few rare cases where anonymity is important. Add whistlelowers etc. to the mix but these are edge cases that can have specialized mechanisms. For many cases the default approach could be good enough though. Your identity will be encrypted in the system and when the moderators of a specific platform think that you are a trouble, they lock you and remove your content but they don’t know your identity. It’s up to you to unlock your account by revealing your identity. So, you can simply post to places that are not hostile to you and you stay anonymous. Russians journalists can post to American forums for example.

tomp 5y ago

> Instead of banning people and removing content, I would prefer losing anonymity. It's not either/or. It's none/both.

colordrops 5y ago

> I know that this is very unpopular opinion but there are very few cases where anonymity is useful. This just isn't true. It makes the assumption that what you will be shamed or punished for saying is completely in line with what is right. No way is that the case, whether you are talking about drugs, gender and sexuality issues, unpopular political ideas, or a host of other things. Your argument is no different from those who claim that only those who have done something wrong care about privacy. It's wrong.

mrtksn 5y ago
So what if you are ashamed? it’s human nature, you face it and move on. If you think that it’s something that it’s not to be ashamed, you defend your position. I also suggested a mechanism to stay anonymous as long as you are not causing problems. If you need the anonymity, simply go that route.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >I also suggested a mechanism to stay anonymous as long as you are not causing problems. And who decides what constitutes "causing problems?" While the vast majority of us (at least I hope so) would agree that violence and murder focused on a particular ethnic, religious or other group is a "problem," most other things have much less widespread support. I have some fairly unpopular ideas, as well as some that are more readily accepted. Should I be doxxed for expressing the thought that all drugs should be legal? For complaining vociferously about the business models of big social media companies? In fact, it doesn't really matter what position I take on pretty much anything (vi vs. emacs, vanilla vs. chocolate ice cream, pandemic policies, etc., etc., etc.), there are those who will disagree -- sometimes with respectful argument/discussion, sometimes with hyperbole and personal attacks, and depending on the topic, even with violence. There are some places in the US where criticizing Trump could get me ostracized, beaten or killed. And yet other places where taking the opposite position could have a similar effect. The hundred or so Hong Kong journalists and activists that are sitting in jails for advocating that the government adhere to its own constitution are there because they were "causing problems." And so I'll pose my question again: Who decides whether or not you, I or anyone else is "causing problems?"

fouric 5y ago

> retribution is an important social construct I would like to see evidence to back up your claim - evidence that supports the extension of this idea from the real world to the internet, because you don't get that for free. Moreover, I can think of far more examples of retribution causing harm in the real world than doing good. Bullying in school, being fired for whistleblowing, being jailed or executed for wrongthink in China, getting slammed with jail time for uncovering criminally bad security on some website, losing your job because a mob on Twitter saw a doctored video of you doing something they didn't like... Are all of these "very few cases where anonymity is useful"? > What if we remain anonymous to the discussion parties but guaranteed linked identity to the systems that host us? That still enables every most of the above abuses - which also happen to be the worse ones. If you don't have even the potential for anonymity on the internet, then you get suppression of speech by tyrannical governments. > If someone does something very bad, the identity could be revealed, i.e. doxxed This reads as an ad for mob justice - and even if it weren't, this mechanism would absolutely still be exploited to that effect.

mrtksn 5y ago
The real life interactions are much more civil because of the fact that being an a*hole gets retribution from the person you are being an a*hole to or from the society. Perfectly nice people turn into psychos when they interact with people online. Observe kids playing games in real life, they are very rarely as vulgar or sadistic as on online games. A walk even in the most crowded places is much nicer experience that an anonymous online place. Oh and yes, the very few cases where anonymity is useful are exactly that kind of cases(whistleblowing, journalism targeting powerful figures etc.). These are rarities and are valuable but %99 of the discussion on the internet are not about these and I suggested a mechanism for anonymity anyway.
- naravara 5y ago
  > Observe kids playing games in real life, they are very rarely as vulgar or sadistic as on online games. Kids are actually rarely vulgar or sadistic when playing online as well. The toxicity of online gaming communities is a self-reinforcing feedback loop. The toxic kids find a home and either drive all the nice kids out with their toxicity or prompt the nice kids to adapt and internalize toxic ways of engaging. It's not an inherent feature of kids themselves and plenty of online games that were explicitly targeted at children have been perfectly fine without epidemics of griefing or abuse as long as they constrain kids to playing within their own friend-groups rather than against strangers. Most of the foulest people are actually adults with jobs or surly teenagers. The kids are fine.

lm28469 5y ago

> there are very few cases where anonymity is useful. The rest is mostly useful for the abusive ones. As long as you don't talk about anything not following the official lines and/or the mainstream ideology, sure... there are many topics which are effectively banned and will get you punished one way or another for just mentioning them

mrtksn 5y ago
Currently, if you say something unpopular you will be downvoted and your speech will be hidden from the rest on most platforms. You can also be silenced completely by getting banned. I am proposing a mechanism to overcome this kind of censorship in exchange of your anonymity in case you had a problem with the management. If you get banned, if your posts are removed and you believe in what you say, you put your reputation on the line by revealing your identity and override account locks and content removal.
- lm28469 5y ago
  What if your employer find your messages and decide he doesn't want to associate with you ? Same for landlords &c. Having everything you say attached to your name forever seems extremely icky (we both know that "banned" and "deleted" don't mean anything on the internet). In an hypothetical perfect world with hypothetical perfectly rational people why not, in the mess we live in it would be a nightmare.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    With the mechanism I'm proposing, you get to keep your identity hidden as long as you are a good citizen of the platform you participate. If you can't stand for the things you say, and they are problematic for the platform you simply don't say them then. In the current system it's exactly the same situation, if your stuff are not O.K. they get removed which is effectively the same as you not saying it. I don't know why people feel entitled to say something without facing the consequences of it. If you don't believe in it enough to defend your position and put forward your reputation, you don't need to say it. Why do you need to deceive people? Let's say, you are a racist and feel very strongly to say something about your opinions. Say it and win the argument and improve your life or say it and lose the argument and people can choose not to be associated with you. That's a fair situation, what's not fair is to annoy people or maybe even harm them from another persona and then pretend that you are something else.

tomjen3 5y ago

>But retribution is an important social construct Within friend groups, yes. On the internet I don't think it makes sense, simply because what is acceptable within different groups is so different.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

I'm signing up for that service with fake information.