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Online "privacy" is a bad meme. Our digital society would be 100x healthier if you could trust that the persona on the other side is real and can be held accoun

Online "privacy" is a bad meme. Our digital society would be 100x healthier if you could trust that the persona on the other side is real and can be held accountable for bad behavior. Advertisers and crooks already have under-the-counter access to our private data (via Equifax, etc.), but we don't get to benefit from it. Let's get over our misguided ideological fetishization of "privacy" that we adopted when we read a fantasy book by George Orwell in middle school and implement a proper identity scheme for the 21st century.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Facebook's real name policy, Youtube's real name policy, Twitter's blue checks.. This hasn't worked. Not once. Full stop. IRC continues to be the best place to have real conversations. Discord is pretty great too and even has built in alt support.
- pphysch 5y ago
  > Facebook's real name policy, Youtube's real name policy, Twitter's blue checks.. These are all opt-in verification mechanisms, likely with the main purpose of protecting the rights of influencers and other content creators so that the platforms keep making money off them. I'm talking about a single federal government-run identity provider that obsoletes all the above schemes. That's what we need and where we are headed, whether we like it or not. It is absurd that we still rely on SSNs and home address verification in 2022.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    You mean like the IRS hiring a private shady biometric company to try and match you to a grainy drivers license photo before they canceled the whole thing due to the bureacratic nightmare hellscape it spawned?
    - pphysch 5y ago
      That sounds awful. No, it would need to be an in-house thing, a proper government agency, complete with their own datacenters and software teams across the US. Probably impossible with the current "print $$$ and outsource" culture in Washington.
      - vorpalhex 5y ago
        So like India's system that was immediately filled with corruption, leaks and outages?
  - amadeuspagel 5y ago
    Facebook's real name policy isn't opt in.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      Facebook is opt-in. Haven't touched the thing in a decade, with virtually zero inconvenience.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    The last people you want running an identity provider are the federal government. You don't want to give them the power to make you an un-person if you some day are not supporting the correct party or agenda. Sometimes you need to know who a person is, most of the time you don't. I don't need to know who you are to sell you a cup of coffee, or really anything you are paying for in full. If I'm lending you money, I need to know to my satisfaction that you are who you say you are, in case I need to find you later to collect. That's my problem and your problem to work out. The Federal Government has no role here.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      > You don't want to give them the power to make you an un-person if you some day are not supporting the correct party or agenda. Too bad. They already have this power -- and more, they can un-life you -- and always have, and always will until they get replaced in the next revolution.
  - majinuub 5y ago
    Doxxing everyone by government mandate isn't the answer, nor should it ever be the answer.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      It is just SSNs but updated for the 21st century. Your dox would probably be a lot safer, because they would be held by 1 accountable public agency rather than 10 unaccountable private for-profit corporations.
      - vorpalhex 5y ago
        Let's not forget the OPM "breach", which was done so trivially they might have well posted the admin creds in the newspaper...
jeroenhd 5y ago
With hatred and violence people are willing to post under their real name on Facebook, I sincerely doubt that enforcing a real name policy like the Chinese government is trying to enforce will make a difference. People are more toxic when they're anonymous, but de-anonymizing people isn't a solution to toxicity. I don't want to give up the ability for gay/trans/whatever people in oppressive societies to express themselves because someone was mean to me on Twitter once. There are platforms out there that will enforce real name policies. You're free to leave communities that don't and enjoy a theoretical community where people are held up to standards if these policies work. You could even add your information to your account description if you don't care about your data and want to shape the community to your liking by setting an example for others. Just don't take down the rest of the internet with you because you don't care. I'm not in the Equifax leak or in any other American credit rating provider leak, so leave me out of your weird post-privacy world, thank you very much.
amadeuspagel 5y ago
There are plenty of platforms that have real-name policies, such as facebook and nextdoor. Are these 100x healthier then platforms like HN, which allow pseudonyms? I don't know. At any rate, the important thing is that people get to choose. If you want to interact with people trusting that they can be held accountable for bad behaviour, you can do that on these platforms. If you want to interact with people free to express themselves without fear of getting "held accountable" for "bad behaviour" - knowing that there is some disagreement on what constitutes bad behaviour and not trusting everyone who's able to "hold people accountable" - to get them fired - to share your views on this, you can do that on platforms like this one.
majinuub 5y ago
Privacy and anonymity are essential for people who want to speak out against powerful or potentially violent groups or individuals. Anonymity is really the only way to protect freedom of speech imo. Privacy is also extremely important for any sensitive info you want to selectively share. Tools, services, and platforms need to take that into consideration. It's not just a meme. >Advertisers and crooks already have under-the-counter access to our private data (via Equifax, etc.), but we don't get to benefit from it. We shouldn't throw away the concept just because we haven't executed it well. The actual problem is our obsession with free stuff and knowing who to trust. Trust should be with family, friends, and the people you know. Then the trust reduces the further someone is from you in the socal graph. That's why I'm big on Web of Trust. You can't (and shouldn't) make people trust those you think they ought to trust. People should choose for themselves. Posting comments and content should have skin in the game, you're absolutely right about that. Being able to post things consequence free is what leads to more trolling and spam. It shouldn't be contingent on your identity though. Micropayments are a great for this. If you had to stake a tiny amount of money for each comment, I think it would reduce spam and trolling.
- pphysch 5y ago
  > Privacy and anonymity are essential for people who want to speak out against powerful or potentially violent groups or individuals. This is the popular refrain, but really its about providing tools for HUMINT, signature reduction, and other covert operations of the US government and its proxies. For instance, this is why the Tor Project is funded primarily by DARPA and the State/Defense Depts -- objectively speaking among the most violent organizations on the planet -- rather than actual dissident groups.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > If you had to stake a tiny amount of money for each comment, I think it would reduce spam and trolling. I disagree with this unpopular idea so I'm going to mark it as spam...

vorpalhex 5y ago

Facebook's real name policy, Youtube's real name policy, Twitter's blue checks.. This hasn't worked. Not once. Full stop. IRC continues to be the best place to have real conversations. Discord is pretty great too and even has built in alt support.

pphysch 5y ago
> Facebook's real name policy, Youtube's real name policy, Twitter's blue checks.. These are all opt-in verification mechanisms, likely with the main purpose of protecting the rights of influencers and other content creators so that the platforms keep making money off them. I'm talking about a single federal government-run identity provider that obsoletes all the above schemes. That's what we need and where we are headed, whether we like it or not. It is absurd that we still rely on SSNs and home address verification in 2022.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  You mean like the IRS hiring a private shady biometric company to try and match you to a grainy drivers license photo before they canceled the whole thing due to the bureacratic nightmare hellscape it spawned?
  - pphysch 5y ago
    That sounds awful. No, it would need to be an in-house thing, a proper government agency, complete with their own datacenters and software teams across the US. Probably impossible with the current "print $$$ and outsource" culture in Washington.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      So like India's system that was immediately filled with corruption, leaks and outages?
- amadeuspagel 5y ago
  Facebook's real name policy isn't opt in.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    Facebook is opt-in. Haven't touched the thing in a decade, with virtually zero inconvenience.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  The last people you want running an identity provider are the federal government. You don't want to give them the power to make you an un-person if you some day are not supporting the correct party or agenda. Sometimes you need to know who a person is, most of the time you don't. I don't need to know who you are to sell you a cup of coffee, or really anything you are paying for in full. If I'm lending you money, I need to know to my satisfaction that you are who you say you are, in case I need to find you later to collect. That's my problem and your problem to work out. The Federal Government has no role here.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    > You don't want to give them the power to make you an un-person if you some day are not supporting the correct party or agenda. Too bad. They already have this power -- and more, they can un-life you -- and always have, and always will until they get replaced in the next revolution.
- majinuub 5y ago
  Doxxing everyone by government mandate isn't the answer, nor should it ever be the answer.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    It is just SSNs but updated for the 21st century. Your dox would probably be a lot safer, because they would be held by 1 accountable public agency rather than 10 unaccountable private for-profit corporations.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      Let's not forget the OPM "breach", which was done so trivially they might have well posted the admin creds in the newspaper...

jeroenhd 5y ago

With hatred and violence people are willing to post under their real name on Facebook, I sincerely doubt that enforcing a real name policy like the Chinese government is trying to enforce will make a difference. People are more toxic when they're anonymous, but de-anonymizing people isn't a solution to toxicity. I don't want to give up the ability for gay/trans/whatever people in oppressive societies to express themselves because someone was mean to me on Twitter once. There are platforms out there that will enforce real name policies. You're free to leave communities that don't and enjoy a theoretical community where people are held up to standards if these policies work. You could even add your information to your account description if you don't care about your data and want to shape the community to your liking by setting an example for others. Just don't take down the rest of the internet with you because you don't care. I'm not in the Equifax leak or in any other American credit rating provider leak, so leave me out of your weird post-privacy world, thank you very much.

amadeuspagel 5y ago

There are plenty of platforms that have real-name policies, such as facebook and nextdoor. Are these 100x healthier then platforms like HN, which allow pseudonyms? I don't know. At any rate, the important thing is that people get to choose. If you want to interact with people trusting that they can be held accountable for bad behaviour, you can do that on these platforms. If you want to interact with people free to express themselves without fear of getting "held accountable" for "bad behaviour" - knowing that there is some disagreement on what constitutes bad behaviour and not trusting everyone who's able to "hold people accountable" - to get them fired - to share your views on this, you can do that on platforms like this one.

majinuub 5y ago

Privacy and anonymity are essential for people who want to speak out against powerful or potentially violent groups or individuals. Anonymity is really the only way to protect freedom of speech imo. Privacy is also extremely important for any sensitive info you want to selectively share. Tools, services, and platforms need to take that into consideration. It's not just a meme. >Advertisers and crooks already have under-the-counter access to our private data (via Equifax, etc.), but we don't get to benefit from it. We shouldn't throw away the concept just because we haven't executed it well. The actual problem is our obsession with free stuff and knowing who to trust. Trust should be with family, friends, and the people you know. Then the trust reduces the further someone is from you in the socal graph. That's why I'm big on Web of Trust. You can't (and shouldn't) make people trust those you think they ought to trust. People should choose for themselves. Posting comments and content should have skin in the game, you're absolutely right about that. Being able to post things consequence free is what leads to more trolling and spam. It shouldn't be contingent on your identity though. Micropayments are a great for this. If you had to stake a tiny amount of money for each comment, I think it would reduce spam and trolling.

pphysch 5y ago
> Privacy and anonymity are essential for people who want to speak out against powerful or potentially violent groups or individuals. This is the popular refrain, but really its about providing tools for HUMINT, signature reduction, and other covert operations of the US government and its proxies. For instance, this is why the Tor Project is funded primarily by DARPA and the State/Defense Depts -- objectively speaking among the most violent organizations on the planet -- rather than actual dissident groups.
dane-pgp 5y ago
> If you had to stake a tiny amount of money for each comment, I think it would reduce spam and trolling. I disagree with this unpopular idea so I'm going to mark it as spam...