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We need to have a serious conversation about the pros and cons of anonymity on public online forums. It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication, most

by onjectic 10mo ago

We need to have a serious conversation about the pros and cons of anonymity on public online forums. It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication, most of us see the harm, but we also don’t want to swing towards mass surveillance(which is a very real risk). EDIT: By unnatural I am referring to not knowing who you are talking to, not knowing the slightest thing about them, our brains don’t process this aspect for what it is, instead we fill in this identity with our imaginations. Perhaps there was a better word for this than unnatural, but to me its especially unnatural because it doesn’t really occur in nature(at least not easily), where as communication across long distances or time happens all the time in nature. TLDR: It’s unnatural that we no longer even know if a comment was written by a human. EDIT2: I am not strongly in favor of removing anonymity from the internet. I don’t know what the answer is.

seanp2k2 10mo ago
The dystopian surveillance state is already here: https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQ https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQ
pjc50 10mo ago
Plenty of people are happy to publish calls for war crimes in the newspapers under their own name, or on the Secretary for Defence letterhead.
- onjectic 10mo ago
  I’m not sure how this counter argues my observation. You seem to be implying that the end goal would be to stop people from saying certain things you find abhorrent. Humans won’t ever stop doing that, it’s that it would sometimes be nice to know that the person presenting themselves as a disillusioned American voter is actually on the opposite side of the planet.
logicchains 10mo ago
> It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication Communication with people half the way across the globe at the speed of light is objectively unnatural too, should we ban that? There's no "we" calling for the end of online anonymity excepts for spooks and people who believe people should be identified and punished for expressing opinions they disagree with.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
krapp 10mo ago
Any form of communication other than grunting and howling from trees is "objectively an unnatural form of communication." Attaching your real world identity to every interaction you have on the internet is no more objectively natural than doing otherwise, and more of a burden than we place on interactions in the real world. I don't exchange my drivers license and SSL with everyone I talk to. We don't need to have the serious conversation, we've had it, and the false dichotomy you're presenting here is invalid. We don't have to choose one or the other. Anonymity has been well established in every free society as legally and morally defensible and a necessity for free speech and a free state for decades, to the point of including some degree of anonymity from one's own government. Moderation beyond strictly legal content is acceptable. Anonymity is also acceptable. 4chan can be 4chan, and other places can not be 4chan. Free speech does not guarantee you a platform, much less all platforms. It doesn't require me to put a target on my back, either.
- intended 10mo ago
  While the point made on unnatural communication is undefined, these three positions are in conflict. - The updated visa instructions - we have had this conversation - Moderation beyond strictly legal content is acceptable. I will say this shows the conversation hasn’t been had. Moderation is most often achieved by the use of censorial powers on private platforms. That this was private censorship is no longer acceptable to the current regime, and people who were enforcing private rules are now in a category of applicants that I assume includes criminals and enemies of the state. If it is an acceptable role, then it must be done well. If it is an unacceptable criminal role, then it must be prohibited well. Either way - people have to make that call and build a consensus on it.
  - krapp 10mo ago
    >I will say this shows the conversation hasn’t been had. It has been had. But you seem to require some objectively correct and universally agreed upon consensus that will never exist. >Moderation is most often achieved by the use of censorial powers on private platforms. "censorial powers on private platforms" are and have been acceptable since the dawn of mass communications. Even Ben Franklin when he ran a newspaper refused to run stories he considered too libelous (although he just as often ran such stories, exercising personal bias in his decisions.) The entire rationale behind the First Amendment is that it binds the government from interfering with free expression, because that right belongs to the people, implicit as it is in the concept of the marketplace of ideas, and freedom of association. Again, the conversation has been had, and the matter has been settled at least for most people. That the current regime disagrees doesn't prove anything any more than disagreement with anything else. People disagree that the world is round, that doesn't mean the matter is still in dispute beyond a reasonable doubt. >and people who were enforcing private rules are now in a category of applicants that I assume includes criminals and enemies of the state. If they commit crimes, have them arrested for those crimes. If they violate TOS (even if they happen to be a sitting President), ban them. Otherwise even criminals and traitors have the same rights as everyone else. Again, this is well established and shouldn't be controversial. > If it is an acceptable role, then it must be done well. > If it is an unacceptable criminal role, then it must be prohibited well. what kind of force is "must" implying here, and how is "well" being defined? We do have legal frameworks in place intended to do what you're proposing, but people are imperfect and may make mistakes or act in ways you might consider to be in error, without falling afoul of criminality. But that's acceptable. We don't abandon rights because they can't be defined or defended perfectly.
metadope 10mo ago
I don't think of myself as anonymous. I am a glittering grain of sand on a beach. I am anonymous only as long as nobody cares to pay attention. If somebody (or some three-letter-agency) decided to focus on me, I'm fairly certain they could decipher my identity and 'de-anonymize' ('demonize') me. But as long as I don't glitter too brightly, don't call too much attention to myself, I can remain safely pseudo-anonymous, just another caw in the cacaphony of the crowded beach. > It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication I agree. Short bits quick hits and spunk spits lead to epileptic fits from social halfwits and, that's what we produce and consume. More so, when we imagine we are anonymous. The random emotional inpulse spikes that flit across so many of our untrained anonymized minds leads to a noise floor that threatens to completely obliterate any signal. There is value in anonymity. But I would love to participate in a smaller subset of the internet, where every participant is known, identified and associated with their real-world self. Such that no one feels so obscured and anonymously free to grafitti; where everyone is careful and concerned with their affect on the environment; where publication is a precise responsibility; where effort must be made or authority is lost. ((Kinda sorta like HN, but with blue checkmarks)/s)

seanp2k2 10mo ago

The dystopian surveillance state is already here: https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQ https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQ

pjc50 10mo ago

Plenty of people are happy to publish calls for war crimes in the newspapers under their own name, or on the Secretary for Defence letterhead.

onjectic 10mo ago
I’m not sure how this counter argues my observation. You seem to be implying that the end goal would be to stop people from saying certain things you find abhorrent. Humans won’t ever stop doing that, it’s that it would sometimes be nice to know that the person presenting themselves as a disillusioned American voter is actually on the opposite side of the planet.

logicchains 10mo ago

> It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication Communication with people half the way across the globe at the speed of light is objectively unnatural too, should we ban that? There's no "we" calling for the end of online anonymity excepts for spooks and people who believe people should be identified and punished for expressing opinions they disagree with.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

krapp 10mo ago

Any form of communication other than grunting and howling from trees is "objectively an unnatural form of communication." Attaching your real world identity to every interaction you have on the internet is no more objectively natural than doing otherwise, and more of a burden than we place on interactions in the real world. I don't exchange my drivers license and SSL with everyone I talk to. We don't need to have the serious conversation, we've had it, and the false dichotomy you're presenting here is invalid. We don't have to choose one or the other. Anonymity has been well established in every free society as legally and morally defensible and a necessity for free speech and a free state for decades, to the point of including some degree of anonymity from one's own government. Moderation beyond strictly legal content is acceptable. Anonymity is also acceptable. 4chan can be 4chan, and other places can not be 4chan. Free speech does not guarantee you a platform, much less all platforms. It doesn't require me to put a target on my back, either.

intended 10mo ago
While the point made on unnatural communication is undefined, these three positions are in conflict. - The updated visa instructions - we have had this conversation - Moderation beyond strictly legal content is acceptable. I will say this shows the conversation hasn’t been had. Moderation is most often achieved by the use of censorial powers on private platforms. That this was private censorship is no longer acceptable to the current regime, and people who were enforcing private rules are now in a category of applicants that I assume includes criminals and enemies of the state. If it is an acceptable role, then it must be done well. If it is an unacceptable criminal role, then it must be prohibited well. Either way - people have to make that call and build a consensus on it.
- krapp 10mo ago
  >I will say this shows the conversation hasn’t been had. It has been had. But you seem to require some objectively correct and universally agreed upon consensus that will never exist. >Moderation is most often achieved by the use of censorial powers on private platforms. "censorial powers on private platforms" are and have been acceptable since the dawn of mass communications. Even Ben Franklin when he ran a newspaper refused to run stories he considered too libelous (although he just as often ran such stories, exercising personal bias in his decisions.) The entire rationale behind the First Amendment is that it binds the government from interfering with free expression, because that right belongs to the people, implicit as it is in the concept of the marketplace of ideas, and freedom of association. Again, the conversation has been had, and the matter has been settled at least for most people. That the current regime disagrees doesn't prove anything any more than disagreement with anything else. People disagree that the world is round, that doesn't mean the matter is still in dispute beyond a reasonable doubt. >and people who were enforcing private rules are now in a category of applicants that I assume includes criminals and enemies of the state. If they commit crimes, have them arrested for those crimes. If they violate TOS (even if they happen to be a sitting President), ban them. Otherwise even criminals and traitors have the same rights as everyone else. Again, this is well established and shouldn't be controversial. > If it is an acceptable role, then it must be done well. > If it is an unacceptable criminal role, then it must be prohibited well. what kind of force is "must" implying here, and how is "well" being defined? We do have legal frameworks in place intended to do what you're proposing, but people are imperfect and may make mistakes or act in ways you might consider to be in error, without falling afoul of criminality. But that's acceptable. We don't abandon rights because they can't be defined or defended perfectly.

metadope 10mo ago

I don't think of myself as anonymous. I am a glittering grain of sand on a beach. I am anonymous only as long as nobody cares to pay attention. If somebody (or some three-letter-agency) decided to focus on me, I'm fairly certain they could decipher my identity and 'de-anonymize' ('demonize') me. But as long as I don't glitter too brightly, don't call too much attention to myself, I can remain safely pseudo-anonymous, just another caw in the cacaphony of the crowded beach. > It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication I agree. Short bits quick hits and spunk spits lead to epileptic fits from social halfwits and, that's what we produce and consume. More so, when we imagine we are anonymous. The random emotional inpulse spikes that flit across so many of our untrained anonymized minds leads to a noise floor that threatens to completely obliterate any signal. There is value in anonymity. But I would love to participate in a smaller subset of the internet, where every participant is known, identified and associated with their real-world self. Such that no one feels so obscured and anonymously free to grafitti; where everyone is careful and concerned with their affect on the environment; where publication is a precise responsibility; where effort must be made or authority is lost. ((Kinda sorta like HN, but with blue checkmarks)/s)