I feel like the latter part of the argument isn’t in good faith. E.g., TechDirt mentions how Facebook requires real names, and Facebook is still rife with misinformation, hate speech etc. That is...
I feel like the latter part of the argument isn’t in good faith. E.g., TechDirt mentions how Facebook requires real names, and Facebook is still rife with misinformation, hate speech etc. That is true. But, I think one of the major issues with Facebook is that they don’t have appropriate policies or infrastructure in place to curb this kind of behavior through banning (or giving timeouts etc.). If Facebook’s KYC policies are actually robust, and they actually had a respectable and justly enforced policy for bans when users posted banworthy content, then I could imagine it might not be so problematic. But, I have no faith that they would do that, because it isn’t in their financial interest to do so.
I don’t agree that online anonymity (or really pseudonymity) should be outlawed, but the way I understand Kessler’s argument is that if you implement something like KYC for social media platforms, then it could make timeouts, or even bans actually effective. That is, if a pseudonymous account is banned, sure, the account owner loses whatever reputation they’ve built associated with that account. But, they can create a new account and continue being just as bad. The point of enforcing that real identities be associated with online accounts is not to try to shame people for their words or encourage self-censorship—I concur that that isn’t effective. The point is that if you can ban someone based on their real identity, then banning is actually an effective tool for expunging bad actors. The trick is that platforms would need to have the policies in place (and the confidence to adhere to them) to go through with bans, even of powerful people, including politicians or executives. And that would raise other issues such as how you formulate fair policies and appeals processes, etc.
Personally, I’d prefer if things like Facebook or Twitter outright forbid public officials from participating on their platforms. Those are private companies’ platforms that should not be forums for official communication. I don’t know how you’d go about handling cases such as ‘Pierre Delecto’, though. Maybe pseudonymous, unofficial communication of that nature is tolerable.
A problem with this model is that banning users can be either too strict or not strict enough, depending on how long the user has had their account and how much they rely on it. Banning someone...
A problem with this model is that banning users can be either too strict or not strict enough, depending on how long the user has had their account and how much they rely on it. Banning someone from Tildes wouldn’t be a big deal, but getting banned from Google can be an expensive hassle.
One way to avoid such enormous consequences is to lower the stakes. So I agree that some people are too important to be on Twitter. It would be a good start if Twitter decided that no heads of state should have accounts.
This is a tough problem to solve because Twitter is incentivized to keep them on its platform as a major eyeball draw. The usual answer to something like this -- regulation -- is equally unlikely...
It would be a good start if Twitter decided that no heads of state should have accounts.
This is a tough problem to solve because Twitter is incentivized to keep them on its platform as a major eyeball draw. The usual answer to something like this -- regulation -- is equally unlikely because the heads of state have self-interest in being on such a platform. If the voters could apply enough pressure to outweigh politicians' self-interest that could be effective but I find that unlikely over what is a fairly niche issue.
Now that Trump is gone, are there other heads of state with popular Twitter feeds? I would have thought that they would be dwarfed by celebrities. This would mostly be about not getting into...
Now that Trump is gone, are there other heads of state with popular Twitter feeds? I would have thought that they would be dwarfed by celebrities.
This would mostly be about not getting into trouble again in the future.
Assuming you're including non-Americans too, this is hard to answer because most prominent politicians are really only followed by people from their own country, and the populations of countries...
Assuming you're including non-Americans too, this is hard to answer because most prominent politicians are really only followed by people from their own country, and the populations of countries vary so widely. For example, a lot of Canadian politicians use Twitter very heavily as an official communication method, but since our population is low, the accounts don't look particularly "popular" on a global scale (e.g. my province's premier tweets constantly, but has "only" 256k followers).
Apparently @Pontifex (Pope Francis) has the next highest follower count after Modi, although that's clearly due to him being the head of the Catholic Church rather than the head of the Vatican...
Apparently @Pontifex (Pope Francis) has the next highest follower count after Modi, although that's clearly due to him being the head of the Catholic Church rather than the head of the Vatican City State. And @RTErdogan is next highest after that.
It is pretty much impossible to defend oneself against personal attacks/claims/allegations that come from anonymous sources. That's why most serious media don't allow/print these types of...
It is pretty much impossible to defend oneself against personal attacks/claims/allegations that come from anonymous sources.
That's why most serious media don't allow/print these types of comments. Anonymity online comes with huge caveats when you can reach mass audiences of millions and millions of people.
If we look at the crazy conspiracies that have become actual political movements, like pizzagate, like Qanon, like Hillary's health smears in the presidential election, like claims of Biden being a pedophile - If we look at all these things, anonymity and anonymous people pushing an agenda through claims are what drives these crazy things into the forefront.
Not only do they do direct harm in slandering public figures (or just random people who happen to go viral), but they do collective harm in downplaying the actual bad things going on, like the sexual misconduct of Trump, pedophiles in positions of power both in various faiths and societies.
Qanon is part of taking down, toning down and minimizing the impact of great reporting on small, rich groups exploiting flawed democracies for their own gain.
The systemic attacks regimes have on other countries and societies through the use of social media are attacks on the fabric of society. Sowing division and politicizing objective reality can be extremely effective attacks on democracy itself.
De-anonymizing social media could do a tremendous amount of good in developed countries with strong democracies.
But de-anonymizing social media would do a ton of harm to societies with regimes that assert undue social control on their inhabitants.
There is a reason there are so many caveats and exceptions from totally free speech, even in the US: centuries of seeing the true power of words. The idea that instant mass communication doesn't fundamentally change the situation and need for legislation is naive at best.
An idea that often comes along with anonymity is the belief that freedom of speech implies freedom of consequence from that speech. '
It's time to reassert the power of speech by strengthening the responsibilities and consequences that follow from speaking. Is de-anonymization the way to go? I'm not convinced, but the last few years clearly show that something has to change.
Even developed countries are not immune to regressions. If they were, Trump wouldn't have made nearly the damage. I can't think of a single place that is immune to these problems. Anonymous and...
Even developed countries are not immune to regressions. If they were, Trump wouldn't have made nearly the damage. I can't think of a single place that is immune to these problems.
Anonymous and secure communication is important. It is a tool. Yes, it can be used for good or evil, but if evil is dominant then good needs that tool.
The cost to society of having these huge anonymous forums is substantial. Too many people seem to ignore that. Again, I'm not convinced de-anonymization is the way to go, but something has to...
The cost to society of having these huge anonymous forums is substantial. Too many people seem to ignore that.
Again, I'm not convinced de-anonymization is the way to go, but something has to change.
What other solutions are there to stop these mass events from doing serious harm to society? Where should we start?
It's clear the platforms are doing harm that should be prevented.
I entirely agree that moderation is easier at smaller scale, but I think there would still be problems. Let's say there are hundreds of thousands of forums with 1000 people each. A good fraction...
I entirely agree that moderation is easier at smaller scale, but I think there would still be problems. Let's say there are hundreds of thousands of forums with 1000 people each. A good fraction of them are going to be terrible. If the mods don't care, it's essentially unmoderated, and now we have a huge number of 4chan-like forums.
Also, I don't think even that is a stable situation. Some forums will see dramatic growth while others wither and die. There need to be limits on growth or the natural tendency is towards extreme inequality in user counts. The popular forums just keep growing until something breaks. (As with r/WallStreetBets.)
Well, so far so good. I wouldn’t underestimate their ability to raise funds for operating expenses, though, particularly when it has to do with politics. And people are throwing money at all sorts...
Well, so far so good. I wouldn’t underestimate their ability to raise funds for operating expenses, though, particularly when it has to do with politics. And people are throwing money at all sorts of things these days.
We agree there is a huge social cost due to these forums. However, it isn't the anonymity of the forum that is causing the social cost. Take for instance Parler, which required actual government...
The cost to society of having these huge anonymous forums is substantial.
We agree there is a huge social cost due to these forums. However, it isn't the anonymity of the forum that is causing the social cost. Take for instance Parler, which required actual government IDs to participate. Parler was shown to be, by and large, the hub for planning the storming of the Capitol. In fact it is this moment, the planning of a coup by users who's identities were checked by a system about as ironclad as we are going to get, that serves as the chief example of why anonymity isn't the source of the social cost we are seeking to mitigate.
The social costs of de-anonymization are truly substantial. This completely removes the chance of community or at least the ability to organize for a lot of closeted LGBTQ+ folks, political dissidents, undocumented Americans, sex workers, victims of stalking, organizing workers, and many more. To even consider mandatory de-anonymization is something that is only accessible to folks in a very specific social position. Best I can tell, this is a topic that's binary: either we have anonymous communities or we don't; I don't see how we can "nuance" this issue down.
De-anonymizing is also de-closeting. I have a Twitter account where I can be out of the trans closet. In real life, not so much. My name is very distinctive. If Twitter required real names, that...
De-anonymizing is also de-closeting. I have a Twitter account where I can be out of the trans closet. In real life, not so much. My name is very distinctive. If Twitter required real names, that would be the end of my Twitter account.
I feel like the latter part of the argument isn’t in good faith. E.g., TechDirt mentions how Facebook requires real names, and Facebook is still rife with misinformation, hate speech etc. That is true. But, I think one of the major issues with Facebook is that they don’t have appropriate policies or infrastructure in place to curb this kind of behavior through banning (or giving timeouts etc.). If Facebook’s KYC policies are actually robust, and they actually had a respectable and justly enforced policy for bans when users posted banworthy content, then I could imagine it might not be so problematic. But, I have no faith that they would do that, because it isn’t in their financial interest to do so.
I don’t agree that online anonymity (or really pseudonymity) should be outlawed, but the way I understand Kessler’s argument is that if you implement something like KYC for social media platforms, then it could make timeouts, or even bans actually effective. That is, if a pseudonymous account is banned, sure, the account owner loses whatever reputation they’ve built associated with that account. But, they can create a new account and continue being just as bad. The point of enforcing that real identities be associated with online accounts is not to try to shame people for their words or encourage self-censorship—I concur that that isn’t effective. The point is that if you can ban someone based on their real identity, then banning is actually an effective tool for expunging bad actors. The trick is that platforms would need to have the policies in place (and the confidence to adhere to them) to go through with bans, even of powerful people, including politicians or executives. And that would raise other issues such as how you formulate fair policies and appeals processes, etc.
Personally, I’d prefer if things like Facebook or Twitter outright forbid public officials from participating on their platforms. Those are private companies’ platforms that should not be forums for official communication. I don’t know how you’d go about handling cases such as ‘Pierre Delecto’, though. Maybe pseudonymous, unofficial communication of that nature is tolerable.
A problem with this model is that banning users can be either too strict or not strict enough, depending on how long the user has had their account and how much they rely on it. Banning someone from Tildes wouldn’t be a big deal, but getting banned from Google can be an expensive hassle.
One way to avoid such enormous consequences is to lower the stakes. So I agree that some people are too important to be on Twitter. It would be a good start if Twitter decided that no heads of state should have accounts.
This is a tough problem to solve because Twitter is incentivized to keep them on its platform as a major eyeball draw. The usual answer to something like this -- regulation -- is equally unlikely because the heads of state have self-interest in being on such a platform. If the voters could apply enough pressure to outweigh politicians' self-interest that could be effective but I find that unlikely over what is a fairly niche issue.
Now that Trump is gone, are there other heads of state with popular Twitter feeds? I would have thought that they would be dwarfed by celebrities.
This would mostly be about not getting into trouble again in the future.
Assuming you're including non-Americans too, this is hard to answer because most prominent politicians are really only followed by people from their own country, and the populations of countries vary so widely. For example, a lot of Canadian politicians use Twitter very heavily as an official communication method, but since our population is low, the accounts don't look particularly "popular" on a global scale (e.g. my province's premier tweets constantly, but has "only" 256k followers).
Overall, I think other than American politicians, Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India has the highest follower count at over 65 million. The account for his office has 40 million followers too.
Apparently @Pontifex (Pope Francis) has the next highest follower count after Modi, although that's clearly due to him being the head of the Catholic Church rather than the head of the Vatican City State. And @RTErdogan is next highest after that.
Source: The 50 Most Followed World Leaders
(a bit outdated... it still lists Trump at the top despite him now having 0 followers ;)
It is pretty much impossible to defend oneself against personal attacks/claims/allegations that come from anonymous sources.
That's why most serious media don't allow/print these types of comments. Anonymity online comes with huge caveats when you can reach mass audiences of millions and millions of people.
If we look at the crazy conspiracies that have become actual political movements, like pizzagate, like Qanon, like Hillary's health smears in the presidential election, like claims of Biden being a pedophile - If we look at all these things, anonymity and anonymous people pushing an agenda through claims are what drives these crazy things into the forefront.
Not only do they do direct harm in slandering public figures (or just random people who happen to go viral), but they do collective harm in downplaying the actual bad things going on, like the sexual misconduct of Trump, pedophiles in positions of power both in various faiths and societies.
Qanon is part of taking down, toning down and minimizing the impact of great reporting on small, rich groups exploiting flawed democracies for their own gain.
The systemic attacks regimes have on other countries and societies through the use of social media are attacks on the fabric of society. Sowing division and politicizing objective reality can be extremely effective attacks on democracy itself.
De-anonymizing social media could do a tremendous amount of good in developed countries with strong democracies.
But de-anonymizing social media would do a ton of harm to societies with regimes that assert undue social control on their inhabitants.
There is a reason there are so many caveats and exceptions from totally free speech, even in the US: centuries of seeing the true power of words. The idea that instant mass communication doesn't fundamentally change the situation and need for legislation is naive at best.
An idea that often comes along with anonymity is the belief that freedom of speech implies freedom of consequence from that speech. '
It's time to reassert the power of speech by strengthening the responsibilities and consequences that follow from speaking. Is de-anonymization the way to go? I'm not convinced, but the last few years clearly show that something has to change.
Even developed countries are not immune to regressions. If they were, Trump wouldn't have made nearly the damage. I can't think of a single place that is immune to these problems.
Anonymous and secure communication is important. It is a tool. Yes, it can be used for good or evil, but if evil is dominant then good needs that tool.
The cost to society of having these huge anonymous forums is substantial. Too many people seem to ignore that.
Again, I'm not convinced de-anonymization is the way to go, but something has to change.
What other solutions are there to stop these mass events from doing serious harm to society? Where should we start?
It's clear the platforms are doing harm that should be prevented.
I entirely agree that moderation is easier at smaller scale, but I think there would still be problems. Let's say there are hundreds of thousands of forums with 1000 people each. A good fraction of them are going to be terrible. If the mods don't care, it's essentially unmoderated, and now we have a huge number of 4chan-like forums.
Also, I don't think even that is a stable situation. Some forums will see dramatic growth while others wither and die. There need to be limits on growth or the natural tendency is towards extreme inequality in user counts. The popular forums just keep growing until something breaks. (As with r/WallStreetBets.)
Well, so far so good. I wouldn’t underestimate their ability to raise funds for operating expenses, though, particularly when it has to do with politics. And people are throwing money at all sorts of things these days.
We agree there is a huge social cost due to these forums. However, it isn't the anonymity of the forum that is causing the social cost. Take for instance Parler, which required actual government IDs to participate. Parler was shown to be, by and large, the hub for planning the storming of the Capitol. In fact it is this moment, the planning of a coup by users who's identities were checked by a system about as ironclad as we are going to get, that serves as the chief example of why anonymity isn't the source of the social cost we are seeking to mitigate.
The social costs of de-anonymization are truly substantial. This completely removes the chance of community or at least the ability to organize for a lot of closeted LGBTQ+ folks, political dissidents, undocumented Americans, sex workers, victims of stalking, organizing workers, and many more. To even consider mandatory de-anonymization is something that is only accessible to folks in a very specific social position. Best I can tell, this is a topic that's binary: either we have anonymous communities or we don't; I don't see how we can "nuance" this issue down.
De-anonymizing is also de-closeting. I have a Twitter account where I can be out of the trans closet. In real life, not so much. My name is very distinctive. If Twitter required real names, that would be the end of my Twitter account.