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Society needs anonymous dissent. This is basic.
by swader999 4y ago
Society needs anonymous dissent. This is basic.
- tgv 4y agoNeeds? As in: twitter and facebook fucked up social structures and we need it?
- swader999 4y agoAs in this forum for example.
- r00fus 4y agoHN is not anonymous. It's pseudonymous at best.
- pessimizer 4y agoThe two don't oppose each other. Throwaway accounts are plentiful for those who want to use them, people who want to stick with a name can do that, and those who want to use (or otherwise make clear) their real name can do that.
- raxxorraxor 4y agoHN doesn't even request a mail. For all intends and purposes it is synonymous with anonymity. Sure, there are platforms that don't even use a user handle. Given, you are free to reveal anything about you.
- tgv 4y agoNow show me how that scales to 8B people ranting away. HN is only decent because of its strict moderation. Twitter and facebook, two examples I didn't name accidentally, don't do that, have a much larger audience, and did sow division, largely because they are anonymous.
- arcticbull 4y agoWhile I do personally believe this, society having anonymous dissent is quite a new concept.
- ok_dad 4y ago"Publius" [0] might have something to say about that. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers
- cal5k 4y agoNot that it was "dissent", per se, but The Federalist Papers were published under the pseudonym "Publius", and I'd say there has been a long tradition of anonymous or pseudonymous dissent.
- swader999 4y agoI meant ideas that diverge from the norm. If you fear cancelling, lowering your social credit score, risking employment you probably won't publish ideas that stray.
- collegeburner 4y agoAnonymous pamphlets and the like were a tool in motivating support for the Revolutionary War.
- anigbrowl 4y agoAre you sure about that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_graffiti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_graffiti
- gadflyinyoureye 4y agoDepends on how you define new. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist were anonymous. Rosicrucianism And other such philosophies come from anonymous sources (they dissented to the religious norms of their time). Basically since the printing press Western societies have had anonymous dissent.
- 4y ago
- api 4y agoThe problem with anonymous dissent is that it's cheap and easy to DDOS into irrelevance with the "firehose of falsehood." Just spam the public square with endless amounts of anonymous bullshit and no anonymous comment will be believed. Since it's anonymous there is no way to verify its provenance. AI is automating this process at scale. You can do this with non-anonymous discourse too but anonymity just makes it easier. The future is private forums, channels, Discord/Slack instances, invite-only private networks, etc. The public web and public social media are entering their twilight.
- Bud 4y agoAnonymous dissent does not, of course, require anonymous comment directly on any and all websites. There are many other venues for dissent. Most of those aren't run by or paid by other people. This bill sucks, but it's no real threat to "anonymous dissent".