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The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where other

The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where others by default filter out non-verified accounts in their feeds) Bots can continue to exist, but must be identifiable as such and connected to a verified real user. Not only will this clean up twitter dramatically, it will also push off those who wish to hide behind anonymous hate speech - they'll flock to somewhere else, and good riddance to them. Sadly, the human race isn't quite ready for anonymous 'free speech' online as all it does is attract the shouty nutjobs and political shills. So lets park that concept, and try again in a few decades time. EDIT: To clarify (and thanks to the responders for calling it out), I meant a real name policy on the verified account details only - it doesn't have to be visible to the masses. --- [1] REAL verification for all, not the blue tick which is basically a vanity symbol these days.

ramraj07 4y ago
Do you know how many Aadhar verifications I can buy for a dollar each here in India? Not a billion but it’s still a lot. Just saying.
- musingsole 4y ago
  The problem with rigid systems of control is they are often terribly blind at even recognizing what enables exploitation due to faulty boundary conditions.
- iKevinShah 4y ago
  speaking remotely related to the topic, do you know of any good Aadhar verification service (not providers, I do not need Aadhar verifications) - All I need is a way for my users to verify themselves (KYC), preferably via Aadhar. Searched a lot but either I Am doing them wrong or unable to locate the exact thing I am looking for.
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    Quick google reveals sandbox.co.in and Mahagram.in among others. Do these not match your needs?
tomcam 4y ago
What about whistleblowers, human trafficking victims, and dissidents who require anonymity?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dfxm12 4y ago
  What about whistleblowers We know how Musk feels about whistleblowers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
- tzs 4y ago
  Whistleblowers generally do not need anonymous public platforms. The generally can go through an intermediary that is not anonymous and that has a reputation for being trustworthy, that intermediary can look at their evidence and perhaps do some independent verification, and then can publish. Similar for dissidents. They can generally find a party outside the reach of the regime they are dissidents of that also opposes that regime and agrees with the dissidents. They just need a secure way to communicate with that outside party. The outside party can then handle spreading the message on public platforms.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Yeah no. Look up the three generation policy. I’m married to a defector.
yc-kraln 4y ago
Real name policy destroys Twitter the way the no-pornography rules destroyed tumblr. It's a position from a place of privilege and is actively harmful, but don't take my word for it, here is a link to the EFF's position: https://www.eff.org/de/issues/anonymity https://www.eff.org/de/issues/anonymity Which is besides the point; why do you think Elon will do any of this, when the previous board/company/ownershop did not?
- lazyier 4y ago
  Musk has indicated that he will do a pay-for blue checkmark. Right now having a verified account is a form of privilege were you pleased some sort of twitter corporate representative who decides these sorts of thing. They have a history of giving blue check marks to accounts they agree with and taking it away from verified people they disagree with. By handing out checkmarks to anybody willing to pay them for it (and by extension tying their legal identity to their twitter one) then it neutralizes the political aspect of verified accounts while improving a revenue stream. The revenue stream would improve in more ways than one. Turns out knowing a person's browsing history and what accounts they have online is not really that useful or interesting to advertisers. It's not a big money maker. However if you can tie financial identities into online identities then that is vastly more interesting and is something advertisers are willing to pay for. This is why Facebook insists on having "real identities" nowadays when people sign up. They partner with other data mining operations and tie people's financial history into their facebook accounts. This way adverisers know people's buying habits, income levels. Pretty much everything you fill out for drivers licensing, hunting licenses, loan application, credit card history, debit card history, mortgage applications, etc etc.. is now tied to your Facebook account if they can figure out to connect the dots. Which isn't that hard for most people.
  - f38zf5vdt 4y ago
    > By handing out checkmarks to anybody willing to pay them for it (and by extension tying their legal identity to their twitter one) then it neutralizes the political aspect of verified accounts while improving a revenue stream. I don't think that extends in the fashion you believe it does. It's like the HashCash solution for email. It was never employed because it probably didn't work, it just made spamming more expensive but didn't eliminate spam. The current walled-garden state of email has also made spam very expensive, but email spam persists to this day. Ability to pay for something online also does not indicate actual identity. It's trivial to get an anonymous Visa number, and so on.
ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
I don't see evidence that it's the only way, Twitter is unmatched in toxicity in the social media landscape yet most other platforms allow anonymous accounts.
Laremere 4y ago
Youtube tried this years ago and then later quietly rolled it back. Turns out many people don't have a problem having their name attached to them being awful people on the internet, and it exposes others to real world harassment. (It also had to do with Google+'s pressure on the rest of Google, but Youtube could've kept it after Google+ failed if the real name policy was actually working.)
- macNchz 4y ago
  The impact of a real name policy on any individual’s behavior also really depends on how common their name is. For someone with a unique name it means others can instantly know their real identity. For someone whose name is shared by tens or hundreds of thousands of others around the world, they are effectively still totally anonymous.
  - mrtranscendence 4y ago
    Even a common name can be helpful when trying to locate someone. I've given some sparse personal information on Hacker News that would definitely allow someone to find me should they know my name, even though there are thousands of people in the US alone that share it.
- WHA8m 4y ago
  'real name policy' could also mean kyc and then you'd still be able to appear under a pseudonym.
- mariodiana 4y ago
  It's not a question of being an objectively awful person; it's a question of being an "awful" person in the eyes of rabid ideologue activists looking to dox and cancel anyone who blasphemes their beliefs.
ok123456 4y ago
No. No one wants 'real names' online. People just got tricked in to doing this because Facebook was centered around connecting people at college, where you interact with people in real life. It was obsolete and an aberration the moment Facebook decided to open up to the wider world. Rate limiting solves the problem of bots crapflooding the service and turning it into a sewer. Not every account you find objectionable is a bot.
- dwringer 4y ago
  > People just got tricked in to doing this because Facebook was centered around connecting people at college, where you interact with people in real life. It was obsolete and an aberration the moment Facebook decided to open up to the wider world. This still burns me up. I only signed up for that reason, and it seemed like a great idea, limiting it to people with institutional .edu emails so it was like a modern interactive yearbook. Then overnight it was something else. Like that old commercial for roach traps where they think they're settling down in a nice comfortable living room and then suddenly it's revealed they're trapped and are being poisoned.
  - ok123456 4y ago
    Good analogy.
- blincoln 4y ago
  <i>No one wants 'real names' online.</i> I think some people legitimately do. If someone is pretty close to the typical mainstream archetype for their culture, it's easy to get caught up in idealism about how great things would be if all books were open. The more one sees outside of that bubble, the more apparent the problems become, but being in the bubble reinforces the positive aspects of that model.
  - ok123456 4y ago
    We shouldn't let dull people with nothing to lose dictate which freedoms are important.
kd913 4y ago
>The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where others by default filter out non-verified accounts in their feeds) I'm gonna call nonsense on this. Practically every social media platform that forces real identities are cesspits because of the real name policy. Largely because of the soap box celebrities/influencers who shill their views and monetize their followers. I prefer reddit/HN a thousand times over the garbage of twitter/FB/etc..
- causi 4y ago
  Yeah, it's easier to ignore racist tirades and death threats when they come from xX_BonerLord420_Xx. Frankly I'd enjoy a platform that outright banned the use or disclosure of real names.
  - mrtranscendence 4y ago
    On the other hand, if someone is giving you death threats and you're afraid they're credible, a real-name policy gives you someone to report.
    - kd913 4y ago
      Sure, but that is why you aren't supposed to use a username tied to your real world identity. In that case, why would you care about the threats exactly? The threats caused by people like Trump, Joe Rogan, Musk, Russian bot farms, Farage, Le Pen etc... and their toxic ignorant views on Vaccines, climate change are far far worse to society than some vague inactionable death threats.
      - kvetching 4y ago
        [dead]
      - geodel 4y ago
        Well, that's just your opinion. If you do not like them block and move on. But yea, it is not likely that anyone of them would be following you.
extr 4y ago
Part of the reason I and many others love twitter is precisely because it retains a spark of that early internet forum style community, with pseudonymity for those who want it and "Real ID" for those who want to treat it like LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever. Awful suggestion.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  Now this surprises me. To me Twitter is the polar opposite to an oldschool internet forum: unmoderated, no structure, a post length limit that acts as hurdle to meaningful content, and a lack of any common interest between members. Twitter is the most toxic "mainstream" community I've ever seen.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
Real identity is usually a very bad idea for most platforms with few exceptions in my opinion. Wouldn't help Twitter if exchanges get even more personal and the bottom quality content is almost always people whose identity is known anyway. edit: Anonymous accounts that allow for detachment and people need to learn not to consume media they don't like. It is pretty easy actually. People in the public, even small ones like streamers are putting themselves out there and it can become a problem. But there isn't a technical solution, these are the age old problems of PR. This is why popular people in the public sphere have agencies just for that single problem. The real name idea is overall pretty bad for numerous additional reasons.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dijonman2 4y ago
The trick is the trending algorithm. Not identities.
hongloumeng 4y ago
I agree that a real name policy would help remove the bots and anonymous hate speech. But there is plenty of non-anonymous hate speech that still make Twitter toxic. The ad-revenue model relies on attention, and attention thrives on memes that inspire outrage, contempt, and fear. The solution is a freemium subscription model. But I don't think he'll do that. I admire the guy's accomplishments like everyone else but we all know he's got a bit of an ego. He'll not put a paywall in front of his Twitter army.
some_random 4y ago
anthropodie 4y ago
> The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy Nope that is not the only way. Federation can also solve moderation issue. Basically you host a server instance and set some ground rules of what is allowed and what is not. But federation cannot generate revenue so I don't think that will ever happen with Twitter unless Elon figures out how to make money from a federated social network.
hongloumeng 4y ago
I agree that a real name policy would help remove the bots and anonymous hate speech. But there is plenty of non-anonymous hate speech that still make Twitter toxic. Those people would have an easier time harassing other people if they knew real names. The ad-revenue model relies on attention, and attention thrives on memes that inspire outrage, contempt, and fear. The solution is a freemium subscription model. But I don't think he'll do that. I admire the guy's accomplishments like everyone else but we all know he's got a bit of an ego. He'll not put a paywall in front of his Twitter army.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  Speaking from my personal position, trans people like me will be harassed more because our names will be public, and bigots will continue hate speech under their real names. Instead we'll be forced to make a decision, reveal our names and risk real life danger in many cases, or abandon the platform and the vibrant community of support that also exists there.
- JacobThreeThree 4y ago
  >relies on attention The success of most things in the world relies on attention. This is not unique to ad-revenue models of social media companies.
bluescrn 4y ago
You could go part-way and just limit anonymous accounts a bit more. Currently users can choose to only let followers/mentioned users reply. Maybe add an option to only allow real-name users to reply.
- Jaruzel 4y ago
  I remember reading somewhere that verified accounts on Twitter can flip a toggle so that ALL they see is other verified accounts[1]. Which is why media outlets and celebs think Twitter is a way nicer place than it really is. --- [1] I don't know if this is really true or not, as I don't have the money to buy myself a super cool blue tick.
chapium 4y ago
Real name policy just leads to threats. I'd rather the place be toxic than exposing people who want to speak up.
hbn 4y ago
Enforcing a real-name policy means the only users you'll have is: 1. People whose opinions are perfectly in-line with the corporate-backed, advertiser-friendly status quo, further cementing such ideas as the status quo 2. Maniacs who have nothing to lose, and/or want to be seen as a martyr All of the reasonable people will just not use the site cause they don't want to risk stepping out of line and having aforementioned maniacs harassing you/contacting your employer/etc
- mrtranscendence 4y ago
  That seems not to be the case with Facebook. Real name policy, plenty of reasonable people remaining. And plenty of nutters whose opinions aren't "perfectly in line with the corporate-backed, advertiser-friendly status quo".
  - hbn 4y ago
    I definitely would not call the people I know who still actively use Facebook to be on the reasonable side of things. For me it seems to be mostly people who got really into deranged politics and are constantly posting insane garbage (on every extreme of the spectrum), as well as housewives shilling MLM scams to each other.
    - mrtranscendence 4y ago
      Maybe that's the case for you, but I keep up with family, friends, and multiple groups on Facebook and I rarely encounter insane garbage. It's mostly cute animal pics, really. I've dropped (or never connected at all) with family I don't like, so that helps.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  Amen. Basically, only pros will participate. The school of "we'll destroy your livelihood" freedom of expression made sure of that.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  3. The vast majority of normal, current users who make no attempt to hide their identity and in fact frequently share it along with plenty of other personal info- as well as sharing links to their twitter profile on other real name identified social platforms.
TobyTheDog123 4y ago
> Sadly, the human race isn't quite ready for anonymous 'free speech' online as all it does is attract the shouty nutjobs and political shills. So lets park that concept, and try again in a few decades time. Thank you for your smug, hand-wavy, holier-than-thou dismissal of online free speech on behalf of the entire human race.
- Jaruzel 4y ago
  You are 100% welcome. Free speech means I'm entitled to my opinion, just as you are to yours. I stand by my statement, that most people can't use free speech responsibly.
  - TobyTheDog123 4y ago
    You're certainly entitled to your own opinion, but other people can absolutely call out what that opinion stems from: Narcissism. You claim to be entitled to free speech and your own opinion, yet claim most people cannot use those entitlements responsibly. Who decides what is and isn't responsible use of free speech? You? People who think like you?
    - baq 4y ago
      that's a good question. how do i know who speaks the truth? should i believe everything? should i believe nothing? should i vet everything i read on the internet myself? i have to delegate trust and if everyone can and will speak whatever they want - or worse, there are FSB troll farms purposefully injecting noise into any public free speech forum, i can't do that. noise floor raises so high the signal can't be filtered out anymore. what then? we declare 'free speech won' and go home victorious, but without a public forum like HN?
      - TobyTheDog123 4y ago
        At the end of the day, it's your choice how you determine what's true, but I don't believe anyone has the right to tell you how to do that -- that the screening should happen between you and the content, not between the submitter and the platform -- kind of like XSS prevention (you must assume anything can get into the database, but all that matters is how it's executed by the end user). I'll give my personal opinion, which you may want to treat as one of many possible viewpoints: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-tell-lies https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-t... The internet has run on the concept of trust and reputation for a while now, but IMO, if you want anything close to the full story, you have to put in the work yourself: Compile your sources, evaluate your and their biases, and come to a conclusion. Ground News is a pretty neat tool to help me with this if it's a widely-reported story. Some examples: - Something from a reputable news source? Probably true, but not always. I try to wait for a decent handful of other, diverse outlets to report on it before believing it, sharing it, etc. - Something from a single account on Twitter on Hacker News? Probably not, but not always. I try to wait for other confirmations before believing it, sharing it, etc. I personally believe it to be a case where free speech wins, people raise the bar for what's worth their trust, and fake news begins to decline as a result -- the opposite being one where people lower their guard due to blind trust in other entities, and fake news can therefore take advantage of that and flourish.
matthew40 4y ago
Usually, authoritarian regimes indeed love real names policies and hate that anonymous people are able to have a voice. Should probably consult with China or Iran, they have some expertise around this.
- Fervicus 4y ago
  I have a bad feeling that this is exactly what's coming after this deal. I hope I am wrong.
  - matthew40 4y ago
    [flagged]
meerita 4y ago
No. You must be able to remain anonymous.
bodono 4y ago
To me the best option would be to massively expand the blue tick / verified accounts to include anyone who can prove their real world identity (and tie their actual name to their accounts), but continue to allow anonymous accounts, and allow users to only view verified accounts and anonymous accounts they follow if they wish. This would cut off trolls, disinfo bots, and spam at the knees while still allowing people who want or need anonymity to have it.
javajosh 4y ago
I don't agree that real names matter. You would think people would be ashamed of their views, of their trolling and cruelty, but they aren't. Just the opposite. The only solution is a more comprehensive sentiment analysis and binning procedure that gives users a way to filter out undesirable speech which isn't based on content. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31155516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31155516
hardware2win 4y ago
I see worse things on fb with real names than on anonymouse reddit,hn,discord. Real names is not good solution
JulianMorrison 4y ago
Real name policies have done nothing to make Facebook less toxic, because bigots in general don't mind their real names being out there. This is what happens when you ignore systemic power imbalances. The bigots have that power and as a result they don't fear consequences. The Republicans announcing public lynching of trans kids are doing it under their real names.
alpaca128 4y ago
A real name policy mainly hurts privacy and not much else. Those people tend to avoid platforms with effective "censorship" as they call it, and that can be done without names. The majority of internet users doesn't spend much time thinking about privacy or anonymity, and it's not uncommon that people make death threats under their real name or end their career with dumb posts on social media. What we need is smaller communities with better moderation. Twitter with its lack of structure is the opposite and acts more like a global spam folder, and discourages meaningful posts by limiting their length. Insults and other toxic language always fits nicely in a tweet.
AlchemistCamp 4y ago
> REAL verification for all ... is how you crush political dissidents.
kmeisthax 4y ago
The weird thing about the blue checkmark was that it was originally supposed to be just a "we validated this user identity" indicator. But then someone decided that it's supposed to be a status symbol (or, more likely, Twitter couldn't figure out how to scale ID verification) and started handing out special Verified privileges... and taking them back when they found out they had handed them to a user that was too toxic for them. I actually disagree with forcing real names everywhere; it didn't make Facebook any less awful and it shuts out anonymous speech. What Twitter needs is a defense against sock-puppeting. You should be able to totally register a pseudonym and speak out if you need to, but not 10,000 "real names" so you can go and manufacture consent. The problem with this is that it's actually really expensive to limit something that costs nothing[0], and furthermore Twitter does not want to do this. The value of their advertising is big-O[1] proportional to their active userbase, so they want to make new account registration as easy as possible to juice those numbers. I don't think this is entirely tractable; all large online communities have problems with sock-puppeting and hate speech even when they are trying to fight it. The incentives for any ad-funded social network is to make the problem worse and worse. [0] The cryptographic term for this conundrum is "Sybil attack", and it's the reason why all cryptocurrencies have to either burn energy (PoW) or internal liquidity (PoS) in order to both prevent rollbacks and remain robust against netsplits. [1] Big-O notation is a system of categorizing growth curves where you only include the fastest-growing term. i.e. if something grows at n^2 + n, we say that's an O(n^2) process.
pid-1 4y ago
Reddit tackled that by allowing communities to self moderate while providing a baseline of what's platform wide acceptable. Although there are many crappy communities, no other social platform comes even close to Reddit's best, well moderated subs. I believe social platforms keep failing exactly because they try to solve spam, etc.. globally and that's not possible. It's better to empower mods community builders. I also believe there is a good opportunity for a social platform that allows mods and builders to be paid somehow. Edit: Another though - that's also how Discord took off.
david422 4y ago
I used to think having my real name attached to things would be a good way for me to be constructive online. What I learned is that there are plenty of crazy people online. And I do not want them to have my real identity.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> the human race isn't quite ready for anonymous 'free speech' online Speak for yourself. I've been participating in anonymous and pseudonymous internet communities for decades and it's great. If nutjobs and shills are the price we must pay for their continued existence, then so be it.
civilized 4y ago
Hidden real identity verification is an interesting idea. Limits bots and abuse without curtailing legitimate free expression. The question is whether people can trust Twitter with that information.
JimmaDaRustla 4y ago
I've been conceptualizing an open and decentralized identity system that would be based on the person's enrolment within organizations. Each organization participating in the identity system would provision something like an OAuth token to its' users for the duration of their memberships. These organizations could be employers, volunteer groups, schools, etc. Third-parties could then leverage a user's collection of tokens as a "strength" of identity and build that into their platform. I would use Twitter daily if I had an option to control an "identity strength threshold" where I would then only see comments from people who have implemented their organization memberships into an online identity. Of course this is wildly conceptual and would be an impossible feat to implement, but it's a fun thought exercise.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  Wouldn't that make it simpler to group people within certain organizations they use to verify.."two same strings creating the same hash value"? suddenly everyone who goes to the same school is grouped and being able to isolate someone because more and more trivial, as well as target certain groups.
zionic 4y ago
>The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots Have you uh, seen "NextDoor"?
tablespoon 4y ago
> The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where others by default filter out non-verified accounts in their feeds) IIRC, Facebook's still toxic even with a real-name policy. Wackos often lack the shame or self-awareness to not be toxic even under their real name. Anecdote time: one of the most toxic people I've encountered online posted under their real name--in a Web 1.0 forum where pseudoanonymity was the norm.
president 4y ago
Agreed. At the very least, fully verified identities on the backend and anonymity on the frontend.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
>The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy Facebook has real names and the messages are just as bad if not often worse. Extremely naive to think this will solve anything.
LargeWu 4y ago
Being verified isn't going to solve the problem of shouty nutjobs and political shills. We are in a post-truth environment, where people spreading misinformation and flat-out lies don't feel an obligation to issue retractions or corrections. They just shamelessly move onto the next lie. Public opinion or consequences other than being deplatformed just don't matter to the likes of Trump and his acolytes.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bjt2n3904 4y ago
Nope. There is another way! Remove the "feature" that recommends something to you. Or alternatively, allow users to turn it off. Problem solved. Someone routinely posts and shares something you don't like? Unfollow them. Someone posts something that is illegal? File a report with the authorities. This, "you must tie all your thoughts to your government issued identity" only solves one problem: allowing the thought police to come after you after losing their hold at Twitter.
avgcorrection 4y ago
Eh. Older folks on social media don’t seem to have any qualms with associating their real identities with toxic posting behavior.

ramraj07 4y ago

Do you know how many Aadhar verifications I can buy for a dollar each here in India? Not a billion but it’s still a lot. Just saying.

musingsole 4y ago
The problem with rigid systems of control is they are often terribly blind at even recognizing what enables exploitation due to faulty boundary conditions.
iKevinShah 4y ago
speaking remotely related to the topic, do you know of any good Aadhar verification service (not providers, I do not need Aadhar verifications) - All I need is a way for my users to verify themselves (KYC), preferably via Aadhar. Searched a lot but either I Am doing them wrong or unable to locate the exact thing I am looking for.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  Quick google reveals sandbox.co.in and Mahagram.in among others. Do these not match your needs?

tomcam 4y ago

What about whistleblowers, human trafficking victims, and dissidents who require anonymity?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dfxm12 4y ago
What about whistleblowers We know how Musk feels about whistleblowers: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
tzs 4y ago
Whistleblowers generally do not need anonymous public platforms. The generally can go through an intermediary that is not anonymous and that has a reputation for being trustworthy, that intermediary can look at their evidence and perhaps do some independent verification, and then can publish. Similar for dissidents. They can generally find a party outside the reach of the regime they are dissidents of that also opposes that regime and agrees with the dissidents. They just need a secure way to communicate with that outside party. The outside party can then handle spreading the message on public platforms.
- tomcam 4y ago
  Yeah no. Look up the three generation policy. I’m married to a defector.

yc-kraln 4y ago

Real name policy destroys Twitter the way the no-pornography rules destroyed tumblr. It's a position from a place of privilege and is actively harmful, but don't take my word for it, here is a link to the EFF's position: https://www.eff.org/de/issues/anonymity https://www.eff.org/de/issues/anonymity Which is besides the point; why do you think Elon will do any of this, when the previous board/company/ownershop did not?

lazyier 4y ago
Musk has indicated that he will do a pay-for blue checkmark. Right now having a verified account is a form of privilege were you pleased some sort of twitter corporate representative who decides these sorts of thing. They have a history of giving blue check marks to accounts they agree with and taking it away from verified people they disagree with. By handing out checkmarks to anybody willing to pay them for it (and by extension tying their legal identity to their twitter one) then it neutralizes the political aspect of verified accounts while improving a revenue stream. The revenue stream would improve in more ways than one. Turns out knowing a person's browsing history and what accounts they have online is not really that useful or interesting to advertisers. It's not a big money maker. However if you can tie financial identities into online identities then that is vastly more interesting and is something advertisers are willing to pay for. This is why Facebook insists on having "real identities" nowadays when people sign up. They partner with other data mining operations and tie people's financial history into their facebook accounts. This way adverisers know people's buying habits, income levels. Pretty much everything you fill out for drivers licensing, hunting licenses, loan application, credit card history, debit card history, mortgage applications, etc etc.. is now tied to your Facebook account if they can figure out to connect the dots. Which isn't that hard for most people.
- f38zf5vdt 4y ago
  > By handing out checkmarks to anybody willing to pay them for it (and by extension tying their legal identity to their twitter one) then it neutralizes the political aspect of verified accounts while improving a revenue stream. I don't think that extends in the fashion you believe it does. It's like the HashCash solution for email. It was never employed because it probably didn't work, it just made spamming more expensive but didn't eliminate spam. The current walled-garden state of email has also made spam very expensive, but email spam persists to this day. Ability to pay for something online also does not indicate actual identity. It's trivial to get an anonymous Visa number, and so on.

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago

I don't see evidence that it's the only way, Twitter is unmatched in toxicity in the social media landscape yet most other platforms allow anonymous accounts.

Laremere 4y ago

Youtube tried this years ago and then later quietly rolled it back. Turns out many people don't have a problem having their name attached to them being awful people on the internet, and it exposes others to real world harassment. (It also had to do with Google+'s pressure on the rest of Google, but Youtube could've kept it after Google+ failed if the real name policy was actually working.)

macNchz 4y ago
The impact of a real name policy on any individual’s behavior also really depends on how common their name is. For someone with a unique name it means others can instantly know their real identity. For someone whose name is shared by tens or hundreds of thousands of others around the world, they are effectively still totally anonymous.
- mrtranscendence 4y ago
  Even a common name can be helpful when trying to locate someone. I've given some sparse personal information on Hacker News that would definitely allow someone to find me should they know my name, even though there are thousands of people in the US alone that share it.
WHA8m 4y ago
'real name policy' could also mean kyc and then you'd still be able to appear under a pseudonym.
mariodiana 4y ago
It's not a question of being an objectively awful person; it's a question of being an "awful" person in the eyes of rabid ideologue activists looking to dox and cancel anyone who blasphemes their beliefs.

ok123456 4y ago

No. No one wants 'real names' online. People just got tricked in to doing this because Facebook was centered around connecting people at college, where you interact with people in real life. It was obsolete and an aberration the moment Facebook decided to open up to the wider world. Rate limiting solves the problem of bots crapflooding the service and turning it into a sewer. Not every account you find objectionable is a bot.

dwringer 4y ago
> People just got tricked in to doing this because Facebook was centered around connecting people at college, where you interact with people in real life. It was obsolete and an aberration the moment Facebook decided to open up to the wider world. This still burns me up. I only signed up for that reason, and it seemed like a great idea, limiting it to people with institutional .edu emails so it was like a modern interactive yearbook. Then overnight it was something else. Like that old commercial for roach traps where they think they're settling down in a nice comfortable living room and then suddenly it's revealed they're trapped and are being poisoned.
- ok123456 4y ago
  Good analogy.
blincoln 4y ago
<i>No one wants 'real names' online.</i> I think some people legitimately do. If someone is pretty close to the typical mainstream archetype for their culture, it's easy to get caught up in idealism about how great things would be if all books were open. The more one sees outside of that bubble, the more apparent the problems become, but being in the bubble reinforces the positive aspects of that model.
- ok123456 4y ago
  We shouldn't let dull people with nothing to lose dictate which freedoms are important.

kd913 4y ago

>The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where others by default filter out non-verified accounts in their feeds) I'm gonna call nonsense on this. Practically every social media platform that forces real identities are cesspits because of the real name policy. Largely because of the soap box celebrities/influencers who shill their views and monetize their followers. I prefer reddit/HN a thousand times over the garbage of twitter/FB/etc..

causi 4y ago
Yeah, it's easier to ignore racist tirades and death threats when they come from xX_BonerLord420_Xx. Frankly I'd enjoy a platform that outright banned the use or disclosure of real names.
- mrtranscendence 4y ago
  On the other hand, if someone is giving you death threats and you're afraid they're credible, a real-name policy gives you someone to report.
  - kd913 4y ago
    Sure, but that is why you aren't supposed to use a username tied to your real world identity. In that case, why would you care about the threats exactly? The threats caused by people like Trump, Joe Rogan, Musk, Russian bot farms, Farage, Le Pen etc... and their toxic ignorant views on Vaccines, climate change are far far worse to society than some vague inactionable death threats.
    - kvetching 4y ago
      [dead]
    - geodel 4y ago
      Well, that's just your opinion. If you do not like them block and move on. But yea, it is not likely that anyone of them would be following you.

extr 4y ago

Part of the reason I and many others love twitter is precisely because it retains a spark of that early internet forum style community, with pseudonymity for those who want it and "Real ID" for those who want to treat it like LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever. Awful suggestion.

alpaca128 4y ago
Now this surprises me. To me Twitter is the polar opposite to an oldschool internet forum: unmoderated, no structure, a post length limit that acts as hurdle to meaningful content, and a lack of any common interest between members. Twitter is the most toxic "mainstream" community I've ever seen.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

Real identity is usually a very bad idea for most platforms with few exceptions in my opinion. Wouldn't help Twitter if exchanges get even more personal and the bottom quality content is almost always people whose identity is known anyway. edit: Anonymous accounts that allow for detachment and people need to learn not to consume media they don't like. It is pretty easy actually. People in the public, even small ones like streamers are putting themselves out there and it can become a problem. But there isn't a technical solution, these are the age old problems of PR. This is why popular people in the public sphere have agencies just for that single problem. The real name idea is overall pretty bad for numerous additional reasons.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dijonman2 4y ago

The trick is the trending algorithm. Not identities.

hongloumeng 4y ago

I agree that a real name policy would help remove the bots and anonymous hate speech. But there is plenty of non-anonymous hate speech that still make Twitter toxic. The ad-revenue model relies on attention, and attention thrives on memes that inspire outrage, contempt, and fear. The solution is a freemium subscription model. But I don't think he'll do that. I admire the guy's accomplishments like everyone else but we all know he's got a bit of an ego. He'll not put a paywall in front of his Twitter army.

some_random 4y ago

anthropodie 4y ago

> The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy Nope that is not the only way. Federation can also solve moderation issue. Basically you host a server instance and set some ground rules of what is allowed and what is not. But federation cannot generate revenue so I don't think that will ever happen with Twitter unless Elon figures out how to make money from a federated social network.

hongloumeng 4y ago

I agree that a real name policy would help remove the bots and anonymous hate speech. But there is plenty of non-anonymous hate speech that still make Twitter toxic. Those people would have an easier time harassing other people if they knew real names. The ad-revenue model relies on attention, and attention thrives on memes that inspire outrage, contempt, and fear. The solution is a freemium subscription model. But I don't think he'll do that. I admire the guy's accomplishments like everyone else but we all know he's got a bit of an ego. He'll not put a paywall in front of his Twitter army.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
Speaking from my personal position, trans people like me will be harassed more because our names will be public, and bigots will continue hate speech under their real names. Instead we'll be forced to make a decision, reveal our names and risk real life danger in many cases, or abandon the platform and the vibrant community of support that also exists there.
JacobThreeThree 4y ago
>relies on attention The success of most things in the world relies on attention. This is not unique to ad-revenue models of social media companies.

bluescrn 4y ago

You could go part-way and just limit anonymous accounts a bit more. Currently users can choose to only let followers/mentioned users reply. Maybe add an option to only allow real-name users to reply.

Jaruzel 4y ago
I remember reading somewhere that verified accounts on Twitter can flip a toggle so that ALL they see is other verified accounts[1]. Which is why media outlets and celebs think Twitter is a way nicer place than it really is. --- [1] I don't know if this is really true or not, as I don't have the money to buy myself a super cool blue tick.

chapium 4y ago

Real name policy just leads to threats. I'd rather the place be toxic than exposing people who want to speak up.

hbn 4y ago

Enforcing a real-name policy means the only users you'll have is: 1. People whose opinions are perfectly in-line with the corporate-backed, advertiser-friendly status quo, further cementing such ideas as the status quo 2. Maniacs who have nothing to lose, and/or want to be seen as a martyr All of the reasonable people will just not use the site cause they don't want to risk stepping out of line and having aforementioned maniacs harassing you/contacting your employer/etc

mrtranscendence 4y ago
That seems not to be the case with Facebook. Real name policy, plenty of reasonable people remaining. And plenty of nutters whose opinions aren't "perfectly in line with the corporate-backed, advertiser-friendly status quo".
- hbn 4y ago
  I definitely would not call the people I know who still actively use Facebook to be on the reasonable side of things. For me it seems to be mostly people who got really into deranged politics and are constantly posting insane garbage (on every extreme of the spectrum), as well as housewives shilling MLM scams to each other.
  - mrtranscendence 4y ago
    Maybe that's the case for you, but I keep up with family, friends, and multiple groups on Facebook and I rarely encounter insane garbage. It's mostly cute animal pics, really. I've dropped (or never connected at all) with family I don't like, so that helps.
B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
Amen. Basically, only pros will participate. The school of "we'll destroy your livelihood" freedom of expression made sure of that.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
3. The vast majority of normal, current users who make no attempt to hide their identity and in fact frequently share it along with plenty of other personal info- as well as sharing links to their twitter profile on other real name identified social platforms.

TobyTheDog123 4y ago

> Sadly, the human race isn't quite ready for anonymous 'free speech' online as all it does is attract the shouty nutjobs and political shills. So lets park that concept, and try again in a few decades time. Thank you for your smug, hand-wavy, holier-than-thou dismissal of online free speech on behalf of the entire human race.

Jaruzel 4y ago
You are 100% welcome. Free speech means I'm entitled to my opinion, just as you are to yours. I stand by my statement, that most people can't use free speech responsibly.
- TobyTheDog123 4y ago
  You're certainly entitled to your own opinion, but other people can absolutely call out what that opinion stems from: Narcissism. You claim to be entitled to free speech and your own opinion, yet claim most people cannot use those entitlements responsibly. Who decides what is and isn't responsible use of free speech? You? People who think like you?
  - baq 4y ago
    that's a good question. how do i know who speaks the truth? should i believe everything? should i believe nothing? should i vet everything i read on the internet myself? i have to delegate trust and if everyone can and will speak whatever they want - or worse, there are FSB troll farms purposefully injecting noise into any public free speech forum, i can't do that. noise floor raises so high the signal can't be filtered out anymore. what then? we declare 'free speech won' and go home victorious, but without a public forum like HN?
    - TobyTheDog123 4y ago
      At the end of the day, it's your choice how you determine what's true, but I don't believe anyone has the right to tell you how to do that -- that the screening should happen between you and the content, not between the submitter and the platform -- kind of like XSS prevention (you must assume anything can get into the database, but all that matters is how it's executed by the end user). I'll give my personal opinion, which you may want to treat as one of many possible viewpoints: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-tell-lies https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-t... The internet has run on the concept of trust and reputation for a while now, but IMO, if you want anything close to the full story, you have to put in the work yourself: Compile your sources, evaluate your and their biases, and come to a conclusion. Ground News is a pretty neat tool to help me with this if it's a widely-reported story. Some examples: - Something from a reputable news source? Probably true, but not always. I try to wait for a decent handful of other, diverse outlets to report on it before believing it, sharing it, etc. - Something from a single account on Twitter on Hacker News? Probably not, but not always. I try to wait for other confirmations before believing it, sharing it, etc. I personally believe it to be a case where free speech wins, people raise the bar for what's worth their trust, and fake news begins to decline as a result -- the opposite being one where people lower their guard due to blind trust in other entities, and fake news can therefore take advantage of that and flourish.

matthew40 4y ago

Usually, authoritarian regimes indeed love real names policies and hate that anonymous people are able to have a voice. Should probably consult with China or Iran, they have some expertise around this.

Fervicus 4y ago
I have a bad feeling that this is exactly what's coming after this deal. I hope I am wrong.
- matthew40 4y ago
  [flagged]

meerita 4y ago

No. You must be able to remain anonymous.

bodono 4y ago

To me the best option would be to massively expand the blue tick / verified accounts to include anyone who can prove their real world identity (and tie their actual name to their accounts), but continue to allow anonymous accounts, and allow users to only view verified accounts and anonymous accounts they follow if they wish. This would cut off trolls, disinfo bots, and spam at the knees while still allowing people who want or need anonymity to have it.

javajosh 4y ago

I don't agree that real names matter. You would think people would be ashamed of their views, of their trolling and cruelty, but they aren't. Just the opposite. The only solution is a more comprehensive sentiment analysis and binning procedure that gives users a way to filter out undesirable speech which isn't based on content. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31155516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31155516

hardware2win 4y ago

I see worse things on fb with real names than on anonymouse reddit,hn,discord. Real names is not good solution

JulianMorrison 4y ago

Real name policies have done nothing to make Facebook less toxic, because bigots in general don't mind their real names being out there. This is what happens when you ignore systemic power imbalances. The bigots have that power and as a result they don't fear consequences. The Republicans announcing public lynching of trans kids are doing it under their real names.

alpaca128 4y ago

A real name policy mainly hurts privacy and not much else. Those people tend to avoid platforms with effective "censorship" as they call it, and that can be done without names. The majority of internet users doesn't spend much time thinking about privacy or anonymity, and it's not uncommon that people make death threats under their real name or end their career with dumb posts on social media. What we need is smaller communities with better moderation. Twitter with its lack of structure is the opposite and acts more like a global spam folder, and discourages meaningful posts by limiting their length. Insults and other toxic language always fits nicely in a tweet.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago

> REAL verification for all ... is how you crush political dissidents.

kmeisthax 4y ago

The weird thing about the blue checkmark was that it was originally supposed to be just a "we validated this user identity" indicator. But then someone decided that it's supposed to be a status symbol (or, more likely, Twitter couldn't figure out how to scale ID verification) and started handing out special Verified privileges... and taking them back when they found out they had handed them to a user that was too toxic for them. I actually disagree with forcing real names everywhere; it didn't make Facebook any less awful and it shuts out anonymous speech. What Twitter needs is a defense against sock-puppeting. You should be able to totally register a pseudonym and speak out if you need to, but not 10,000 "real names" so you can go and manufacture consent. The problem with this is that it's actually really expensive to limit something that costs nothing[0], and furthermore Twitter does not want to do this. The value of their advertising is big-O[1] proportional to their active userbase, so they want to make new account registration as easy as possible to juice those numbers. I don't think this is entirely tractable; all large online communities have problems with sock-puppeting and hate speech even when they are trying to fight it. The incentives for any ad-funded social network is to make the problem worse and worse. [0] The cryptographic term for this conundrum is "Sybil attack", and it's the reason why all cryptocurrencies have to either burn energy (PoW) or internal liquidity (PoS) in order to both prevent rollbacks and remain robust against netsplits. [1] Big-O notation is a system of categorizing growth curves where you only include the fastest-growing term. i.e. if something grows at n^2 + n, we say that's an O(n^2) process.

pid-1 4y ago

Reddit tackled that by allowing communities to self moderate while providing a baseline of what's platform wide acceptable. Although there are many crappy communities, no other social platform comes even close to Reddit's best, well moderated subs. I believe social platforms keep failing exactly because they try to solve spam, etc.. globally and that's not possible. It's better to empower mods community builders. I also believe there is a good opportunity for a social platform that allows mods and builders to be paid somehow. Edit: Another though - that's also how Discord took off.

david422 4y ago

I used to think having my real name attached to things would be a good way for me to be constructive online. What I learned is that there are plenty of crazy people online. And I do not want them to have my real identity.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

> the human race isn't quite ready for anonymous 'free speech' online Speak for yourself. I've been participating in anonymous and pseudonymous internet communities for decades and it's great. If nutjobs and shills are the price we must pay for their continued existence, then so be it.

civilized 4y ago

Hidden real identity verification is an interesting idea. Limits bots and abuse without curtailing legitimate free expression. The question is whether people can trust Twitter with that information.

JimmaDaRustla 4y ago

I've been conceptualizing an open and decentralized identity system that would be based on the person's enrolment within organizations. Each organization participating in the identity system would provision something like an OAuth token to its' users for the duration of their memberships. These organizations could be employers, volunteer groups, schools, etc. Third-parties could then leverage a user's collection of tokens as a "strength" of identity and build that into their platform. I would use Twitter daily if I had an option to control an "identity strength threshold" where I would then only see comments from people who have implemented their organization memberships into an online identity. Of course this is wildly conceptual and would be an impossible feat to implement, but it's a fun thought exercise.

Avicebron 4y ago
Wouldn't that make it simpler to group people within certain organizations they use to verify.."two same strings creating the same hash value"? suddenly everyone who goes to the same school is grouped and being able to isolate someone because more and more trivial, as well as target certain groups.

zionic 4y ago

>The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots Have you uh, seen "NextDoor"?

tablespoon 4y ago

> The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy, and b)fully verified[1] identities for all users/bots (opt-in, where others by default filter out non-verified accounts in their feeds) IIRC, Facebook's still toxic even with a real-name policy. Wackos often lack the shame or self-awareness to not be toxic even under their real name. Anecdote time: one of the most toxic people I've encountered online posted under their real name--in a Web 1.0 forum where pseudoanonymity was the norm.

president 4y ago

Agreed. At the very least, fully verified identities on the backend and anonymity on the frontend.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

>The ONLY way to solve the toxic nature of Twitter is to enforce a)a real name policy Facebook has real names and the messages are just as bad if not often worse. Extremely naive to think this will solve anything.

LargeWu 4y ago

Being verified isn't going to solve the problem of shouty nutjobs and political shills. We are in a post-truth environment, where people spreading misinformation and flat-out lies don't feel an obligation to issue retractions or corrections. They just shamelessly move onto the next lie. Public opinion or consequences other than being deplatformed just don't matter to the likes of Trump and his acolytes.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bjt2n3904 4y ago

Nope. There is another way! Remove the "feature" that recommends something to you. Or alternatively, allow users to turn it off. Problem solved. Someone routinely posts and shares something you don't like? Unfollow them. Someone posts something that is illegal? File a report with the authorities. This, "you must tie all your thoughts to your government issued identity" only solves one problem: allowing the thought police to come after you after losing their hold at Twitter.

avgcorrection 4y ago

Eh. Older folks on social media don’t seem to have any qualms with associating their real identities with toxic posting behavior.