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>I'm proposing a system where platforms lose their ability to censor people if the people in question are ready to bear the personal responsibility of their act

>I'm proposing a system where platforms lose their ability to censor people if the people in question are ready to bear the personal responsibility of their actions. It is an interesting idea. However, there are some serious issues with that approach: 1. The old adage, "If it's connected to the Internet, eventually it will be hacked/compromised," applies, potentially exposing the links between accounts and the identities of those who operate them en masse; 2. The business models of most of the big platforms rely upon knowing who you are, so they can pretend that they can "target" advertising effectively. As such, those platforms would never go for such a solution; 3. I go back to the question I initially asked you -- Who decides when someone is 'causing problems' that would trigger the requirement that one give up their anonymity? If the management of a platform is controlled or influenced by governments or powerful special interests, important conversations would likely be stifled by such policies. I'm all for cryptographic mechanisms (providing data integrity/non-repudiation) to identify individual actors (cf. stuff like this: https://pgp.key-server.io/ https://pgp.key-server.io/ ) and validate that they are who they say they are. However, forcing folks to use their "legal" identities to do so is a big mistake, given the propensity of others to harass and verbally/physically attack those with whom they disagree. Giving centralized platforms the ability to force doxxing if they don't like the content of a particular post is problematic at best, and life-threatening at worst.

mrtksn 5y ago
I haven't worked out the cryptographic mechanisms but my ballpark assessment is that it should be possible to work out a mechanism that protects your identity up until you accept to exchange exposure for ability. The business model is probably more of an issue, as you pointed out. Oh BTW, it doesn't have to be a legal identity, I think. It could be some kind of identity that you build, it costs something and can be identical across platforms. The "costs something" doesn't have to be money, something that forces you to have just one practically. The NFT folks advocate for something like that. It could be a Instagram account with substantial number of followers(this one is problematic). Basically, something hard spawn without effort and consequences, something that you built on over time and you don't want to risk it by being a dick to someone. The government ID is a good one as the govt. acts as reliable identity provider with significant identification infrastructure but I don't like that much because a government can abuse it as they can generate ID's without significant effort.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >I haven't worked out the cryptographic mechanisms but my ballpark assessment is that it should be possible to work out a mechanism that protects your identity up until you accept to exchange exposure for ability. The business model is probably more of an issue, as you pointed out. Another piece to this that you haven't addressed is that in the environment you propose, once you've chosen to expose your identity, every single thing you've ever posted and will ever post is now de-anonymized. >Oh BTW, it doesn't have to be a legal identity, I think. It could be some kind of identity that you build, it costs something and can be identical across platforms. I'd note that's already the case. If you're pseudonymous and offend the powers that be on a particular platform, they can already ban/censor/block you. Please understand that I am not attacking you, nor am I dismissing your thoughts. There absolutely is merit in exploring ways to combat abuse/trolling/sundry nastiness online. Rather, I find your proposal unconvincing and likely unworkable. It would be way too easy to game such a system and it would impose serious consequences on anyone who might espouse an unpopular opinion -- even if that opinion isn't abusive. I sincerely hope that we can find ways to limit abusive/destructive behaviors online, but given that we've been unable to do so IRL when one's identity is already known, that seems incredibly unlikely.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    It all comes from my observation that the social platforms enabled interactions at huge scale without implementing the natural safeguards of real life interactions. We meet with unpleasant people too, we had unpopular opinions prior the internet but we managed to work things out. It wasn't the end of the world to have an argument or say something horrible and all came down to accumulate it on a single identity. To end up alone, you would have had to say something extremely bad, something inexcusable but other than that you had the incentive to work on your ideas and relationships if you had controversial opinions. You can say something bad and be dismissed and you can also keep pushing for it until you get accepted. On the social interactions on the internet, you miss much of it. If someone says something controversial, they will be often censored through voting mechanisms, shadow bans and account removals. I'm extremely annoyed from our lack of ability to express controversial opinions online. Contrary to the narrative, anonymous accounts don't actually say anything controversial if they are going to get any traction. They usually say something populist and rally people. It also enables people who think alike to gather and re-enforce their opinions. There are no controversial opinions in online conversations, there are controversial clans that talk to each other and sometimes engage in flamewars when they encounter each other. Trump never said anything unpopular, name a person who you think is horrible but popular and that person never says unpopular things, that's how they are popular. The web has become popularity contests and the anonymity only serves for saying the popular opinions of one group when you are in another. On every platform that I know, the most popular opinions are those who are promoted and the unpopular ones are hidden or buried, even here on HN is the same thing. You can observe how my truly unpopular opinion will get greyed out and sent to the botton of the thread, possibly collapsed and out of reach to the most so that the populist opinions on this platform can reign. I want a mechanism where expressing controversial opinions doesn't punish your reach but because I know that this can lead to some horrible stuff(like the things in 4chan etc), I propose a way to put your reputation on the line to do it. 4Chan is an exception where controversial ideas are not buried but they have an issue with some people who are truly horrible.

mrtksn 5y ago

I haven't worked out the cryptographic mechanisms but my ballpark assessment is that it should be possible to work out a mechanism that protects your identity up until you accept to exchange exposure for ability. The business model is probably more of an issue, as you pointed out. Oh BTW, it doesn't have to be a legal identity, I think. It could be some kind of identity that you build, it costs something and can be identical across platforms. The "costs something" doesn't have to be money, something that forces you to have just one practically. The NFT folks advocate for something like that. It could be a Instagram account with substantial number of followers(this one is problematic). Basically, something hard spawn without effort and consequences, something that you built on over time and you don't want to risk it by being a dick to someone. The government ID is a good one as the govt. acts as reliable identity provider with significant identification infrastructure but I don't like that much because a government can abuse it as they can generate ID's without significant effort.

nobody9999 5y ago
>I haven't worked out the cryptographic mechanisms but my ballpark assessment is that it should be possible to work out a mechanism that protects your identity up until you accept to exchange exposure for ability. The business model is probably more of an issue, as you pointed out. Another piece to this that you haven't addressed is that in the environment you propose, once you've chosen to expose your identity, every single thing you've ever posted and will ever post is now de-anonymized. >Oh BTW, it doesn't have to be a legal identity, I think. It could be some kind of identity that you build, it costs something and can be identical across platforms. I'd note that's already the case. If you're pseudonymous and offend the powers that be on a particular platform, they can already ban/censor/block you. Please understand that I am not attacking you, nor am I dismissing your thoughts. There absolutely is merit in exploring ways to combat abuse/trolling/sundry nastiness online. Rather, I find your proposal unconvincing and likely unworkable. It would be way too easy to game such a system and it would impose serious consequences on anyone who might espouse an unpopular opinion -- even if that opinion isn't abusive. I sincerely hope that we can find ways to limit abusive/destructive behaviors online, but given that we've been unable to do so IRL when one's identity is already known, that seems incredibly unlikely.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  It all comes from my observation that the social platforms enabled interactions at huge scale without implementing the natural safeguards of real life interactions. We meet with unpleasant people too, we had unpopular opinions prior the internet but we managed to work things out. It wasn't the end of the world to have an argument or say something horrible and all came down to accumulate it on a single identity. To end up alone, you would have had to say something extremely bad, something inexcusable but other than that you had the incentive to work on your ideas and relationships if you had controversial opinions. You can say something bad and be dismissed and you can also keep pushing for it until you get accepted. On the social interactions on the internet, you miss much of it. If someone says something controversial, they will be often censored through voting mechanisms, shadow bans and account removals. I'm extremely annoyed from our lack of ability to express controversial opinions online. Contrary to the narrative, anonymous accounts don't actually say anything controversial if they are going to get any traction. They usually say something populist and rally people. It also enables people who think alike to gather and re-enforce their opinions. There are no controversial opinions in online conversations, there are controversial clans that talk to each other and sometimes engage in flamewars when they encounter each other. Trump never said anything unpopular, name a person who you think is horrible but popular and that person never says unpopular things, that's how they are popular. The web has become popularity contests and the anonymity only serves for saying the popular opinions of one group when you are in another. On every platform that I know, the most popular opinions are those who are promoted and the unpopular ones are hidden or buried, even here on HN is the same thing. You can observe how my truly unpopular opinion will get greyed out and sent to the botton of the thread, possibly collapsed and out of reach to the most so that the populist opinions on this platform can reign. I want a mechanism where expressing controversial opinions doesn't punish your reach but because I know that this can lead to some horrible stuff(like the things in 4chan etc), I propose a way to put your reputation on the line to do it. 4Chan is an exception where controversial ideas are not buried but they have an issue with some people who are truly horrible.