OP here. Surprised to see an old blog post resurface like this. Just to be clear, I am not in favor of a centralized e-ID type of system. I think that would be

OP here. Surprised to see an old blog post resurface like this. Just to be clear, I am not in favor of a centralized e-ID type of system. I think that would be a very ugly world to live in. I don't think that an e-ID is a good thing. This is why I talk about a web of trust at the end of the post. We need a better solution that doesn't rely on centralized control. > On the other hand, local Facebook groups and the feed of your friends, Github repositories, Mastodon… may not face the same future. Maybe there's a lesson to learn here? The way I see it, right now, bots are just not capable enough and it's not cost effective enough to try to gain access to these smaller communities. Facebook is a prime target because a single account gains you access to billions of users. That makes it worthwhile to farm out account creation to actual humans. I do think smaller and more niche platforms will probably always be less subject to influence, but, there's money and power to be gained by influencing public opinion on any platform. So it's just a matter of time. Eventually there will be bots that are smart enough to create an account on any platform without human supervision and that are much less heavy handed and obvious. These bots will be able to auto-generate profile pictures and play more of a "long game" in terms of gaining your trust.