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Website operators could still take measures to stop abuse from troll farms as well while still allowing people to remain anonymous. A website operator like Twit
by JZerf 4y ago
Website operators could still take measures to stop abuse from troll farms as well while still allowing people to remain anonymous. A website operator like Twitter for instance could perhaps require users to make a small micro-transaction before allowing someone to make a post. Some equilibrium for the cost of a post could probably be found where most legitimate users would still be willing to pay that cost but most troll farms would not.
- pphysch 4y agoAre you serious? The problematic troll farms are the ones backed by states and multinational corporations. Gating speech behind money only makes the problem worse. The correct approach is to deanonymize reasonably "public" online behavior. This is the only way to hold abusers accountable, and, ironically, democratize free speech. 1 person, 1 voice. Not 1 rich person, 100 troll accounts.
- JZerf 4y agoYeah, I'm serious. Even with Twitter, for example, currently allowing accounts to be created and posts to be made for essentially free, real accounts and posts still outnumber those of troll farms and bots from what I've seen. If those troll farms and bots actually had to pay, I imagine there would be far less. I also imagine that those troll farms and bots are less influential than real people. I believe that the endgame is that if a website operator takes enough measures to stop troll farms and bots, the operators of those troll farms and bots will eventually run out of resources and be forced to curtail their activity. You're right that gating speech behind money could potentially be bad and make problems worse but I only offered that as one suggestion. Instead of or in addition to using money, you could perhaps make a system that uses some type of karma/reputation for instance. Those could still be done anonymously.