I still remember the days when almost everyone on Internet forums used pseudonyms and closely guarded their identities. It was even taught in schools not to reveal who you are online.
Google, FB and other tech giants changed the norms around this completely for most Internet users. Once these platforms realised it was easier to monetise their users, and control abuse when dealing with real identities, they pushed hard for verified accounts (e.g. Google Plus) even though this is antithetical to the founding ideas of cyberspace.
Today we have two Internets, one where anonymity is still possible but you can reveal your true name if you want (e.g. HN), and another of walled gardens with verified identities. The UK government is proposing to enshrine the fully identified concept of the Internet into law. While this will prevent some abuse it's a sad reflection on how some of the early values of cyberspace have been lost, where people could be who they wanted to be, and freely discuss topics they might not wish to have associated with their real names forever. Politicians whose main interaction with the Internet is through their Twitter accounts just don't get that.
It's a matter of scale i think. In small communities, you're not really anonymous in the same way as on facebook. You might only be known as DataDog213 on some forum with a hundred members, but the people there know you and who you are as a person.
In facebook groups with thousands of members with no real bar or entry, you're really anonymous and no more distinctive than anyone else if you don't make yourself stand out. (By bar of entry, I mean things like even finding the site in the first place)
I'm not really seeing that difference in requirements. Most of the forums were trivial to find in all sorts of Google searches, allowing thousands of people to create a new unique account, and then get banned for violating the pinned rules about asking a question by one of the <100 users that could be recognized as being a repeated chat mate on the one forum. Many of those obsessives on one forum would never be findable somewhere else where they might not have been an expert.
I find it a bit sad that thousands of people are on FB using their real names and turning person who says stupid things about several different hobbies into a permanent part of their own fairly permanent identity and I don't actually see how it helps anything. But maybe people who don't find it creepy see something I don't.
Isn't this in reverse??? A lot of people on Facebook know who I am. I was in TONS of forums and no one had a clue who I was in real life and my accounts weren't connected with anything other than a made up email for "confirmation" purposes and promptly deleted.
On social media groups and public posts, you are named but you are nobody to everyone else.
On forums, you are unnamed but you gather a reputation and become somebody.
(And on HN and Reddit, you are both unnamed AND a nobody.)
And I think it’s because on forums, it was a combination of (1) a smaller community and (2) you had an avatar and sometimes a signature, which made every post of yours memorable.
I'm curious, why do you think that these requirements won't spread to the rest of the internet? I doubt the proponents of this law would create a "loop hole" by allowing other sites to maintain "anonymity" (in quotes because there's no real anonymity on the internet for almost nearly everyone).
Also, you seem to be making two contradictory points:
1) Facebook and Google pushed hard for verified accounts
2) Some parts of the internet make it optional to reveal your true name
Verified accounts, as I understand them, on the social platforms are only for people who publicly want to build a brand around their identity. While people have to use a "real name" on Facebook and Google, there's nothing requiring to get verified.
> I'm curious, why do you think that these requirements won't spread to the rest of the internet
I didn't say that, I only said that we currently have two Internets, but that there has been a shift towards the walled gardens of identified accounts over time. The proponents of the law probably would end up creating loop holes just because their main beef is with the big tech firms, and it would be challenging for a single country to enforce legislation on the rest of Internet.
> Verified accounts, as I understand them, on the social platforms are only for people who publicly want to build a brand around their identity. While people have to use a "real name" on Facebook and Google, there's nothing requiring to get verified.
We may be getting mixed up with the meaning of "verified", I'm talking about accounts where the platform has associated you with your RL identity through some method, not just the process to get a public blue tick.
And, while there may be nothing formal requiring verification, there are many reports of people suddenly getting locked out of their accounts and being required to provide ID or at least a phone number shortly after registration. In fact a phone number is a pretty widespread requirement and it's getting harder to obtain a phone number that's not linked to your identity in some way. I don't see the contradiction in what I wrote, I have simply pointed out trends, not absolutes.
I still remember the days when almost everyone on Internet forums used pseudonyms and closely guarded their identities
I still remember when everyone on the internet was fully open about their identities.
When you posted something online, you'd always use your real name. Often you'd also include your work and/or home address, work and/or home phone number, and where you worked with job title.
I'm not saying that's better than what we have now. Just pointing out how the 'net has whiplashed from one extreme to another in a very short time.
>I still remember the days when almost everyone on Internet forums used pseudonyms and closely guarded their identities.
It really depended. For Usenet, many people were posting from their work or university accounts and their names and affiliations were often on display. And real names were also often common on local BBSs where people would even get together in real life. Random forums (and certainly anything to do with warez/cracking/etc.) that's doubtless true.
Honest question in good faith - Why should we hold true to some past ideals of technologists 20 or 30 years ago?
I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the notion of the web as a self protecting organism that naturally rejects misinformation and stops bad actors is completely wrong.
I don’t know that I’m 100% in favor of what is being proposed here (partly because I expect there are likely nefarious reasons why governments are pushing it so hard.)
But I also think you can’t ignore that misinformation from anonymous actors has pushed democracy to the brink of collapse, and “that wasn’t the original idea of the web” isn’t the best rebuttal.
I think that this is a situation where "when guns are outlawed only the outlaws will have guns."
Requiring real world identities to post online had a number of chilling effects on speech online.
- LGBTQ people were outed after having their online persona linked to their real world identity.
- People who need to maintain strong personal/professional life separations have been outed (ex: Slate Star Codex)
- People have had their lives upended by being part of an angry community (ex: Blizzards RealID caused revealing peoples identity to the gamer community. Love my games but wow does that community love doxxing and sometimes SWATing)
- It has not prevented spam / trolls / people being hateful online (ex: Nextdoor)
This has been a long standing conflict (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymwars). The UKs opinion has always been one of providing as much information as possible to the government for questionable purposes. This is the same government which constantly wants to backdoor encryption so that they can spy on citizens at any time.
> I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the notion of the web as a self protecting organism that naturally rejects misinformation and stops bad actors is completely wrong.
It's an interesting question, but the point isn't as clear to me. First of all I believe most people are able to see through misinformation. The biggest blame should be laid on algorithmic feeds that optimise for engagement, and are therefore designed to lead people into self-reinforcing loops where their ideas never get challenged. That's the main bad "innovation" that social media platforms brought; the arguments about dangerous ideas, censorship, and bad actors echo all the way back to the dawn of the printing press.
> But I also think you can’t ignore that misinformation from anonymous actors has pushed democracy to the brink of collapse, and “that wasn’t the original idea of the web” isn’t the best rebuttal.
I think this is overstating the role of "anonymous actors" - plenty of misinformation comes from well-known politicians and simply normal people. Are you referring to FB's concept of "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" and troll-farms in authoritarian countries? This is definitely a problem which platforms have to tackle, but again I don't think it's as huge a factor as people make it out to be and certainly has not pushed democracy to collapse on its own.
Interesting that democracy is “to the brink of collapse” due to individual people expressing their thoughts on technological platforms. Either this is an exaggeration or maybe there are other reasons for the “collapse” like bad actors in government (not regular citizens) providing false information and trying to manipulate the citizens.
> Why should we hold true to some past ideals of technologists 20 or 30 years ago?
Those aren't (just) their ideals any longer. I adopted them as my own, because I'd like the world to look a little like that.
Besides, what's 20 or 30 years? Since when do we think that the ideals of ancient philosophers, thinkers, religious figures, the FSF[0], heck even the "UNIX philosophy" have nothing to offer just because they're "old"?
Ideas aren't like milk, they don't spoil if you leave them out of the fridge for a few days.
[0] Yes, I know they are controversial, but their ideas were certainly influential.
> misinformation from anonymous actors has pushed democracy to the brink of collapse
If voters in a democracy are basing their votes on random stuff they read on Facebook or Twitter, the problem isn't misinformation. There is no way to have any platform for distributing information that is guaranteed to only distribute the truth. Any responsible adult should be aware of that and should apply critical thinking to whatever information they see, no matter where it comes from.
I don't know, to me it always seems to start with an account with a long name and man or woman in suits, carried on by people in similar online attire with extreme rage and confusion, until it hits someone with an ultrashort name and an anime icon who speaks shibboleth, at which point either the original misinformation is explained, or platform aristocracy kick in.
As far as my experience goes, those with full long names and professionally taken portraits as icons are easiest to trigger and corner because they only ever believe, refuse or double down. They never back down in embarrassment, or verify claims or make refutes with requisite care, and they are extremely angry by default as well. Complete anonymous posters(like in certain gray website) are very problematic in whole different ways but even those are not as easy to manipulate.
Facebook, TikTok, Instagram are a literal cesspool of misinformation that often gets its starting energy by being shared, upvoted and commented on by fake accounts. I don’t think “in any way” is fair.
Verified, authentic, checkmarked and vetted people still post false, misleading, or otherwise deliberate propaganda all the time. Truth claims from popular users fuel the fire of public opinion, whichever way the wind may blow.
Dare I say I don't think insistence on authentic identity will improve things.
> I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the notion of the web as a self protecting organism that naturally rejects misinformation and stops bad actors is completely wrong
Well HN does this thing called shadowbanning, where the user sees their post when logged in, but in a brand new isolated session (when not logged in), their posts are not visible. The only caveat to this is the user spent a considerable amount of energy writing a comment, only to have it ghosted and non-visible to other HN'ers meaning their time was wasted and their ideas essentially censored. Shadowbanning works however, and stops HN getting flooded with spam, but has the sneaky caveat of essentially censoring some content.
Google, FB and other tech giants changed the norms around this completely for most Internet users. Once these platforms realised it was easier to monetise their users, and control abuse when dealing with real identities, they pushed hard for verified accounts (e.g. Google Plus) even though this is antithetical to the founding ideas of cyberspace.
Today we have two Internets, one where anonymity is still possible but you can reveal your true name if you want (e.g. HN), and another of walled gardens with verified identities. The UK government is proposing to enshrine the fully identified concept of the Internet into law. While this will prevent some abuse it's a sad reflection on how some of the early values of cyberspace have been lost, where people could be who they wanted to be, and freely discuss topics they might not wish to have associated with their real names forever. Politicians whose main interaction with the Internet is through their Twitter accounts just don't get that.