Is it time to remove anonymity online?

What i find strange - is that many who support the removal of privacy online - are dead against principals like voter id and vice versa.

Why cant social media companies not simply hide offensive messages from view unless a user opts in to view it?
 
bainbridge said:
I don't think it's a good idea because it enables one to say what they like behind a cloak of anonymity, with no repercussions.

I'm all for free speech, I have the right to say what I like, but if I break the law I should face the consequences.
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You say that like it's a bad thing. People breaking the law are a small minority, why should everyone have to sacrifice their privacy for a few bad eggs? Where do you draw the line, why don't we make it a legal requirement to have government cameras in every room of every house? We could train AI to flag possible crimes like domestic abuse so that they can't keep doing it with no repercussions.
 
DeliciousStorage said:
You say that like it's a bad thing. People breaking the law are a small minority, why should everyone have to sacrifice their privacy for a few bad eggs? Where do you draw the line, why don't we make it a legal requirement to have government cameras in every room of every house? We could train AI to flag possible crimes like domestic abuse so that they can't keep doing it with no repercussions.
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The question posed is about online anonymity, not privacy.
 
There is certainly no doubt that some people use online anonymity as a shield to do and say what they want, with largely no consequence, things that they never in a million years would do or say face to face. In an ideal world removing anonymity would be fine. Having said that, in an ideal world you wouldnt need to remove anonymity. I personally wouldnt have any problem with having to give up my online anonymity, I'm really not interesting enough for people to bother to track and I dont have enough money or assets for anyone to be bothered with attempting to get a hold of them. There would have course have to be measures in place throughout society to then prove that person A is indeed person A otherwise giving up online anonymity is opening a can of worms.
 
Or security. Because you'd have to weaken or remove encryption from things.

But then people would use the new security holes to stay anonymous :D

Luckily Tim knew what he was doing when he created the internet's infrastructure. It's purposely designed to prevent an organisation taking complete control of it. Hopefully before he dies he changes something to make it even harder, then takes the crypto keys with him :D
 
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Nasher said:
Or security. Because you'd have to weaken or remove encryption from things.

But then people would use the new security holes to stay anonymous :D

Luckily Tim knew what he was doing when he created the internet's infrastructure. It's purposely designed to prevent an organisation taking complete control of it. Hopefully before he dies he changes something to make it even harder, then takes the crypto keys with him :D
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Perhaps he could then leave the keys somewhere within his construct and anyone who finds them gets to control it? <deja vu>
 
How do we know all those accounts abusing the England footballers are from England they could be from anywhere in the world probably foreigners doing it just to cause trouble.
 
banbom44 said:
How do we know all those accounts abusing the England footballers are from England they could be from anywhere in the world probably foreigners doing it just to cause trouble.
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They could be Scottish :p
It's annoying though when certain posters assume casual ageism and classism in their preferred choice of culprit. Just like I did above with location.
If the aim is to go after these people to prosecute or limit their attendance at matches, a civilian unit should be employed rather than warranted officers who have other things to be doing.
 
adolf hamster said:
no, people just need to learn that the **** that gets said to/about them online via anonymous accounts can, and indeed should, be completely ignored.

people seem to act sometimes like the internet invented [insert bad thing], it didn't, all the internet has done is hold up a magnifying glass to the **** humanity always did, and will always continue to do.
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Takes significantly more balls and effort to deliver a deliberately racist remark to someone in public though. Bullies are pretty much always cowards but those that hide behind anonymous user names are the lowest form. So yes the internet didn’t invent racist bullying but mass social media has enabled it, made it to easy and too risk free. You are right though it really doesn’t help that a large portion of the human race is pretty scummy and that society allows these views to persist.
 
a1ex2001 said:
Takes significantly more balls and effort to deliver a deliberately racist remark to someone in public though. Bullies are pretty much always cowards but those that hide behind anonymous user names are the lowest form. So yes the internet didn’t invent racist bullying but mass social media has enabled it, made it to easy and too risk free. You are right though it really doesn’t help that a large portion of the human race is pretty scummy and that society allows these views to persist.
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If only people were anti-racist as opposed to just not being racist. What an uncomfortable thought that is for a lot of people and their daft family members.
 
banbom44 said:
How do we know all those accounts abusing the England footballers are from England they could be from anywhere in the world probably foreigners doing it just to cause trouble.
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A bit like how many people on social media have 1000s of fake followers lol. You can go to a company in China etc, pay money and they'll generate all the users and do whatever you ask them to.
 
a1ex2001 said:
Takes significantly more balls and effort to deliver a deliberately racist remark to someone in public though. Bullies are pretty much always cowards but those that hide behind anonymous user names are the lowest form. So yes the internet didn’t invent racist bullying but mass social media has enabled it, made it to easy and too risk free. You are right though it really doesn’t help that a large portion of the human race is pretty scummy and that society allows these views to persist.
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They're not though generally... there were a handful of openly racist tweets on Twitter posted directly to the tl which got attention, I saw 4 that were screenshotted and widely criticised - one "comedian", one (alleged) Estate Agent (or, he claims, a 3rd party using his account - of course, he would say that) and 2 apparent Somali guys LARPing as England fans.

Then there were the mostly foreign accounts, quite likely bots, spamming monkey emojis in replies on Instagram etc..

Contrast that with the general condemnation en masse of those few tweets vs 2/4 of the prominent ones being clearly faked and over 70% of the dubious replies Foreign trolls.

It's been amplified by the media because racism is a big topic at the moment, in reality, the UK is probably one of the least racist societies on the planet... even when comparing to European countries with far more right-wing politicians/political parties getting wider support and far-right football supporter groups and forget about Africa, Asia, South America, that's a whole other level.

It's like the hysteria over the police last summer - in reality, at least as far as shootings/deaths in custody are concerned, their generally isn't evidence that they're racist or that black people specifically need to be wary of the police. The mass outrage and nonsense about slashing police budgets etc.. has lead to a rise in crime and many more deaths (many of which were of black people) as a result.

That of course didn't stop all the mindless people from spreading the latest iteration of "woke/anti-racist" books on Instagram... I'm not sure if they even read them themselves or if they just post stuff like that for a bit of virtue signalling but anyone reading DiAngelo or Kendi and just sucking that stuff up at face value is a little bit dumb.
 
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dowie said:
They're not though generally... there were a handful of openly racist tweets on Twitter posted directly to the tl which got attention, I saw 4 that were screenshotted and widely criticised - one "comedian", one (alleged) Estate Agent (or, he claims, a 3rd party using his account - of course, he would say that) and 2 apparent Somali guys LARPing as England fans.

Then there were the mostly foreign accounts, quite likely bots, spamming monkey emojis in replies on Instagram etc..

Contrast that with the general condemnation en masse of those few tweets vs 2/4 of the prominent ones being clearly faked and over 70% of the dubious replies Foreign trolls.

It's been amplified by the media because racism is a big topic at the moment, in reality, the UK is probably one of the least racist societies on the planet... even when comparing to European countries with far more right-wing politicians/political parties getting wider support and far-right football supporter groups and forget about Africa, Asia, South America, that's a whole other level.
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Now re-read the bit you went to all the effort to highlight in bold …… come back to me when you find the bit that says British….. d’oh (bonus point if you can find my mention of the recent football tweets)
 
a1ex2001 said:
Now re-read the bit you went to all the effort to highlighted in bold …… come back to me when you find the bit that says British….. d’oh (bonus point if you can find my mention of the recent football tweets)
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What do you think the current news story OP mentioned at the start is? the conflict in Israel/Palestine... D'oh yourself.

It applies globally too - relative to the UK most other places in the world are a fair bit more racist - though I don't share your pessimism with humans in general, and at least as far as our society is concerned we certainly don't allow these views to persist, they're the exception and you can see quite clearly the reaction to them.
 
banbom44 said:
How do we know all those accounts abusing the England footballers are from England they could be from anywhere in the world probably foreigners doing it just to cause trouble.
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Indeed. Whilst I have no doubt many of the disgusting posts are legit racist bar stewards, there are plenty of bot accounts and Russian troll groups on Twitter who goal is to basically stir **** up.
 
dowie said:
What do you think the current news story OP mentioned at the start is? the conflict in Israel/Palestine... D'oh yourself.

It applies globally too - relative to the UK most other places in the world are a fair bit more racist - though I don't share your pessimism with humans in general, and at least as far as our society is concerned we certainly don't allow these views to persist, they're the exception and you can see quite clearly the reaction to them.
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Lol keep digging, the OP references the recent News as ‘another’ so implying it is a final nail in the coffin not just a reaction to this story. The post I quoted is utterly unrelated to the recent story and my reply clearly isn’t but you keep going or you could just admit you got it wrong.
 
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