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But why not? I want to make the distinction on public and private speech. In the physical world, no one should ever have their private speech scrutinized, that'

by fyredge 24d ago

But why not? I want to make the distinction on public and private speech. In the physical world, no one should ever have their private speech scrutinized, that's why there are laws banning covert recording. But in public, speech is very much moderated. We don't allow hate speech and we don't allow harassment of others. Social media is a public platform. We can't enforce moderation if we can't identify the abuser, they can always just make a new account. So deanonymize social media access, but for private communication? Let's leave that free from prying eyes. To bring it back to cars, roads are public infrastructure, that's why you need a license. No one cares if you drive licenseless on your private track.

pjc50 24d ago
I generally agree with this, but a problem I can't solve is: at what point does a "large group chat" become a "public channel"? If, hypothetically, someone is organizing a thousand people in balaclavas to turn up outside a business they want to intimidate, over Telegram or Signal, is that "private" or "public"? (also everyone in this thread saying deanonymisation does not on its own solve the problem is correct)
- fyredge 24d ago
  I draw the line on discoverability. Reddit? Public. Hacker news? Public. 4chan? Public. Facebook and Instagram are also public with a slight caveat, private accounts will be considered private, otherwise public. Even ye old public forums are considered public. Discord and group chats will be considered private. Basically anything that requires an invitation / permission to view their content is considered private. To your example, I'm not sure if J6 members were organising publicly themselves. If the FBI wanted to, they could easily infiltrate these groups as an anonymous member themselves, so I don't see a contradiction there. Legislatively, it means that platforms will be held responsible for their public content, which I think is fair. If there are too much content to moderate, it's up to them to find solutions. I hear rumours of a promising automating tool called LLMs.
halsafar 24d ago
Not all internet usage would be deemed public. Social media sure. What about what you watch on PornHub? Should that be tied directly to your government ID? I know that's an easy one to cherry pick but just consider all you use the internet for and how an adversarial governmenft could use some of that info. Personally I'd love to see all social media corps required to verify ID but leave the rest of the internet alone.
- hypfer 24d ago
  And that's how you get Minecraft letsplays on PornHub. Interesting question though, because IRL, before the internet, there was also ID verification to access that kind of content. And that was actually worse, because the person checking your ID lived in your city and could see you buying groceries. I suppose what you would want there is a verification mechanism that proves that you're an adult, but gives absolutely no info on which adult you are. This - to my understanding - is possible with the technology we have. But whether that will actually be what happens remains to be seen.
- fyredge 24d ago
  PornHub is a great example! It is a public platform and thus posters have to be deanonymized. For one, this would provide traceability to people who revenge post intimate content. It would not block anonymous viewers. While that means minors can still access porn, there will be a level of accountability to the creators of porn. Porn mags were a thing before the internet anyways, and the magazine itself was tied to real identifiable people.
vaylian 24d ago
The internet would be a lot poorer, if all users had to be identified. I really appreciate it when people tell their personal stories and talk about how they have overcome crises. Anonymity empowers people to help others by sharing life lessons. Those same life lessons would be very harmful for the reputation of the internet user, if they had to be posted with the user's real name. Not everyone has a life that is all sunshine. Not every use of anonymity is criminal or unethical.
- fyredge 24d ago
  I completely understand and actually agree with your stance. Consider this, the personal blog we love reading can remain anonymous, because it is private in the sense that it is ostensibly the writings of a single person, it is not a platform. To bring it back to analog, newspapers are platforms, where journalists are identified members of the public and can be held accountable for their words. If you would like more personal stories, by all means, search for the personal blog online and share them with your friends privately. But if you share it on a public platform like HN, you are making an editorial decision that this is worth sharing to the masses and thus should be scrutinized.
  - voakbasda 24d ago
    If the blog is publicly published, so the author should be unmasked. Identification schemes would be fine if there were never abused, but every single instance of them has been abused in the past. There is zero reason to believe it will it be different on the internet. Are you familiar with how the DMCA gets abused? Do you really believe that bad actors will not find similar ways to abuse an identification system?
    - fyredge 23d ago
      Oh, that's not what I meant. It's the person who shared the content publicly that needs to be deanonymized, not the author. Think of it like advertising on billboards. When you partake in an activity with explicit intent to persuade others, you should declare who you are first. That's why my target has been solely focused on social media. Personal blogs don't advertise, social media does. Just like how a private business conducts themselves privately, but advertisements of a company should make clear if it is self advertisement or someone else advertising on behalf of them.

by fyredge 24d ago

pjc50 24d ago

I generally agree with this, but a problem I can't solve is: at what point does a "large group chat" become a "public channel"? If, hypothetically, someone is organizing a thousand people in balaclavas to turn up outside a business they want to intimidate, over Telegram or Signal, is that "private" or "public"? (also everyone in this thread saying deanonymisation does not on its own solve the problem is correct)

fyredge 24d ago
I draw the line on discoverability. Reddit? Public. Hacker news? Public. 4chan? Public. Facebook and Instagram are also public with a slight caveat, private accounts will be considered private, otherwise public. Even ye old public forums are considered public. Discord and group chats will be considered private. Basically anything that requires an invitation / permission to view their content is considered private. To your example, I'm not sure if J6 members were organising publicly themselves. If the FBI wanted to, they could easily infiltrate these groups as an anonymous member themselves, so I don't see a contradiction there. Legislatively, it means that platforms will be held responsible for their public content, which I think is fair. If there are too much content to moderate, it's up to them to find solutions. I hear rumours of a promising automating tool called LLMs.

halsafar 24d ago

Not all internet usage would be deemed public. Social media sure. What about what you watch on PornHub? Should that be tied directly to your government ID? I know that's an easy one to cherry pick but just consider all you use the internet for and how an adversarial governmenft could use some of that info. Personally I'd love to see all social media corps required to verify ID but leave the rest of the internet alone.

hypfer 24d ago
And that's how you get Minecraft letsplays on PornHub. Interesting question though, because IRL, before the internet, there was also ID verification to access that kind of content. And that was actually worse, because the person checking your ID lived in your city and could see you buying groceries. I suppose what you would want there is a verification mechanism that proves that you're an adult, but gives absolutely no info on which adult you are. This - to my understanding - is possible with the technology we have. But whether that will actually be what happens remains to be seen.
fyredge 24d ago
PornHub is a great example! It is a public platform and thus posters have to be deanonymized. For one, this would provide traceability to people who revenge post intimate content. It would not block anonymous viewers. While that means minors can still access porn, there will be a level of accountability to the creators of porn. Porn mags were a thing before the internet anyways, and the magazine itself was tied to real identifiable people.

vaylian 24d ago

The internet would be a lot poorer, if all users had to be identified. I really appreciate it when people tell their personal stories and talk about how they have overcome crises. Anonymity empowers people to help others by sharing life lessons. Those same life lessons would be very harmful for the reputation of the internet user, if they had to be posted with the user's real name. Not everyone has a life that is all sunshine. Not every use of anonymity is criminal or unethical.

fyredge 24d ago
I completely understand and actually agree with your stance. Consider this, the personal blog we love reading can remain anonymous, because it is private in the sense that it is ostensibly the writings of a single person, it is not a platform. To bring it back to analog, newspapers are platforms, where journalists are identified members of the public and can be held accountable for their words. If you would like more personal stories, by all means, search for the personal blog online and share them with your friends privately. But if you share it on a public platform like HN, you are making an editorial decision that this is worth sharing to the masses and thus should be scrutinized.
- voakbasda 24d ago
  If the blog is publicly published, so the author should be unmasked. Identification schemes would be fine if there were never abused, but every single instance of them has been abused in the past. There is zero reason to believe it will it be different on the internet. Are you familiar with how the DMCA gets abused? Do you really believe that bad actors will not find similar ways to abuse an identification system?
  - fyredge 23d ago
    Oh, that's not what I meant. It's the person who shared the content publicly that needs to be deanonymized, not the author. Think of it like advertising on billboards. When you partake in an activity with explicit intent to persuade others, you should declare who you are first. That's why my target has been solely focused on social media. Personal blogs don't advertise, social media does. Just like how a private business conducts themselves privately, but advertisements of a company should make clear if it is self advertisement or someone else advertising on behalf of them.