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You can't really conclude that de-anonymization is good just by asserting that the status quo is bad. One has to make the positive case for de-anonymization on

You can't really conclude that de-anonymization is good just by asserting that the status quo is bad. One has to make the positive case for de-anonymization on privately owned platforms. What are the trade-offs? Society certainly didn't anticipate a lot of the drawbacks of anonymous presence.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Why do we automatically assume that anonymization is good? Where are the anonymous town squares?
- mpalmer 3y ago
  I dunno, I was pretty careful not to assume that in my comment. The town square metaphor is really not a great one for the internet. You don't run nearly as high a risk of getting doxxed or swatted for speaking your mind in a physical public place. And if the unspoken suggestion is that anonymous doxxing would be impossible or too costly/risky in a hypothetical de-anonymized world, I'd call BS. Even if it worked, that would require some kind of "panopticon internet". Sounds bad...
  - roncesvalles 3y ago
    Also, the town square is ephemeral. Sure, maybe it's written down somewhere, heck maybe the local scribe even publishes it in the next day's paper. But it won't show up 7 years later as the third Google search result when someone searches your name. You either need the right to be forgotten, or the right to be anonymous.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      This is the crux of the social good of anonymization in modern times. Historically, it wasn't current-moment anonymization that was good, but ephemerality. Sadly, I think the right/ability-to-record is a genie that can't be put back in the bottle (no one can scrape anything?), so we may need to switch from identifiable-but-emphemral (historical state) to anonymous-but-recordable (future state) to preserve the same freedoms. IMHO, we'd be better off working to curb the worst consequences of broad anonymity (e.g. astroturfing / artificial amplification).
      - Aerbil313 3y ago
        It’s all just that internet is neither a game to be hunted nor a fire to be started. No one knows how to deal with it. Because there isn’t any proper way to deal with it. It should not exist in the first place, says our minds, for which it is all unintelligible.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Why do we automatically assume that anonymization is good? Where are the anonymous town squares?

mpalmer 3y ago
I dunno, I was pretty careful not to assume that in my comment. The town square metaphor is really not a great one for the internet. You don't run nearly as high a risk of getting doxxed or swatted for speaking your mind in a physical public place. And if the unspoken suggestion is that anonymous doxxing would be impossible or too costly/risky in a hypothetical de-anonymized world, I'd call BS. Even if it worked, that would require some kind of "panopticon internet". Sounds bad...
- roncesvalles 3y ago
  Also, the town square is ephemeral. Sure, maybe it's written down somewhere, heck maybe the local scribe even publishes it in the next day's paper. But it won't show up 7 years later as the third Google search result when someone searches your name. You either need the right to be forgotten, or the right to be anonymous.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    This is the crux of the social good of anonymization in modern times. Historically, it wasn't current-moment anonymization that was good, but ephemerality. Sadly, I think the right/ability-to-record is a genie that can't be put back in the bottle (no one can scrape anything?), so we may need to switch from identifiable-but-emphemral (historical state) to anonymous-but-recordable (future state) to preserve the same freedoms. IMHO, we'd be better off working to curb the worst consequences of broad anonymity (e.g. astroturfing / artificial amplification).
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      It’s all just that internet is neither a game to be hunted nor a fire to be started. No one knows how to deal with it. Because there isn’t any proper way to deal with it. It should not exist in the first place, says our minds, for which it is all unintelligible.