Would an end to anonymous posting improve social media?

[Valka D'Ur]

How long will it be before 90% of the populations personal data would be on a dark web database if you had to hand it over to post online?

There's another push in Canada to require that we give up unreasonable amounts of privacy to access online, and the excuse given is "to combat child trafficking" or something else that is a problem but there are already legal mechanisms in place to deal with them.

Many years ago there was a federal cabinet minister who tried this. He made a speech about how anyone who wasn't willing to give up their privacy was "on the side of the child molesters."

I actually ran across a child porn site one time when I was a Mechanical Turk worker. The HIT I was working on was to classify blogs as to what demographic their intended audience was, what language(s) they were in, whether they were personal, business, hobby, etc. and a couple of other categories. I credit this with how I learned to differentiate between Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese (had no idea there were so many non-English blogs out there).

Everything went well until I saw pictures of little Asian kids, some as young as about 3, in situations that were absolutely horrifying. Of course my first thought was "I have to report this." But to whom, and how? We were told to flag HITS that couldn't be completed for some reason, but those were technical. There were no instructions on what to do if we found something illegal.

The way the government was talking back then, just finding such images in someone's browsing history would be enough to trigger accusations, so I was feeling fairly panicky at that point.

So for this POS Harperite cabinet minister to start yapping that if you're unwilling to give up privacy, it means you're on the side of the child molesters, that was... beyond infuriating. I did write to him and tell him how wrong he was, and it was gratifying to see on CBC that there were many other people also angry about this proposed legislation.

Someone started a "Tell Vic Everything" movement (the cabinet minister's name was Vic Toews). So people started flooding his phone messages, email, and even snailmail with things like "Vic, I just ate a peanut butter sandwich." "Vic, I just went to the bathroom." "Vic, I just stubbed my toe." And a whole slew of other trivial things that happen to people on an average day. It wasn't long before he dropped his legislation.

 

[Senethro]

I think the foundation of intellectual debate and progress comes from the free sharing and challenging of ideas. In this way topics can be debated and the best ideas rise to the top. For this to work requires two things:
- the culture where people are open to share without fear of repercussion
- the culture where people are able to criticise / challenge with candour
These both rely on the concept of ‘psychological safety’. Psychological safety is easy amongst friends, but with people you don’t know it’s hard. Anonymity allows it to be created within groups of strangers.

I don't believe this. Its a comfortingly shaped myth. I don't think there are any actual examples that demonstrate this.

Edit: I also feel I should be less cynical. What I think is missing from your list and is completely essential is Good Faith/sincerity(IDK what to call it). The absolute guarantee that the Wolves and Lambs can debate about what to have for dinner, with the same number of participants arriving and leaving the meal. That these communications are not just a rallying cry and declaration of intent. That evidence influences choice of outcome, not the reverse.

 

[EvaDK]

How would these companies be able to vet people's identities in the first place?

Unless they would require you to send them a screenshot of a government issued document that contains your personal data; the very kind of data that our government here instructs us to never, ever share with third parties.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: Less talk about posters and more about the topic please.

 

[Samson]

I guess this goes here. Some kids at a good school (with a 13:1 teacher:child ratio), principally 2 thirteen year old girls AIUI, made 22 TikTok accounts of their teachers (and a "custodian"?). They said some nasty things, and people got upset. The "solution" is to suspend the "ringleaders" and in the future the kids say they will set the videos to private and then the school will not punish them.

I am kind of surprised this sort of thing is not commonplace. If you put photos of yourself on the internet it is trivial for anyone to anonymously make a social media account pretending to be you. I am amazed so many people do it, especially in positions like teaching.

Here are some quotes, my principle source is this youtube, or here is a ars technica.

A photo of the spanish teacher at the beach with her husband and their young children that they took off social media. They created a meme the text which was written in Spanish "do you like to touch kids" and the answer Ci

They took a picture of the social studies teacher and student council adviser from his wedding in a church with his wife cropped out captioned it with the name of a kid from the student council implying that the teacher had married him instead and also included the words in the meme "I'm going to touch you".

They pasted the heads of two male teachers on naked bodies and bed together (that was unrealistic). They also made the fake teacher accounts follow each other and then hit on each other in the comments.

After being identified the kids posted on the fake TikTok accounts:

We never meant for it to get this far obviously I never wanted to get suspended
:Crying face Emoji: :Birthday cake emoji:

Move on. Learn to joke I'm 13 years old and you're like effing 40 going on 50

The superintendent of the Great Valley School District, Daniel Goffredo, wrote "While it may be easy to react in a way that suggests that students should have been more heavily disciplined in school, some, but not all, of their behavior is protected by the right of free speech and expression,".

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Nothing about that should be protected by "free speech and expression."

 

[Ordnael]

I think that constitutes a crime of identity theft.

 

[Samson]

I think that constitutes a crime of identity theft.

I do not think that is a crime. I think it is usually an element of fraud, which is not present here.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If I were to set up a social media account using your real name and real photo, without your permission, how would that not be identity theft?

 

[Gorbles]

I do not think that is a crime. I think it is usually an element of fraud, which is not present here.

The terms seem to blur together, at least from a cursory Google search. The main difference seems to be theft is the action of taking the data, and fraud is using that data:

 

[Ordnael]

Well both identity theft and/or fraud are crimes...at least in my country.

 

[Samson]

The terms seem to blur together, at least from a cursory Google search. The main difference seems to be theft is the action of taking the data, and fraud is using that data:

View attachment 706978

Well both identity theft and/or fraud are crimes...at least in my country.

I am being somewhat pedantic, but the act of taking the data is not theft. If it is posted publicly on the internet you are allowed to "take" it, as long as you are doing it in a GDPR compliant way. This is why you should not dox yourself online.

For this to become fraud there are other elements that have to be present:

The elements of the offence are:

•making
•a false representation
•dishonestly
•knowing that the representation was or might be untrue or misleading
•with intent to make a gain for themselves or another, to cause loss to another or to expose another to risk of loss

I think there is a good case those are not all present in this case.

 

[Narz]

Kids are mean

 

[Samson]

It looks like Vietnam have done it. Do we have any Vietnamese here?

Social media users in Vietnam on platforms including Facebook and TikTok will need to verify their identities as part of strict new internet regulations that critics say further undermine freedom of expression in the communist country.

The law, which comes into force on Christmas Day, will compel tech companies operating in Vietnam to store user data, provide it to authorities on request, and remove content the government regards as “illegal” within 24 hours.

Decree 147, as it is known, builds on a 2018 cybersecurity law that was sharply criticised by the US, EU and internet freedom advocates who said it mimics China’s repressive internet censorship.

In October, blogger Duong Van Thai – who had almost 120,000 followers on YouTube, where he regularly recorded livestreams critical of the government – was jailed for 12 years on charges of publishing anti-state information.

Months earlier, leading independent journalist Huy Duc, the author of one of the most popular blogs in Vietnam – which took aim at the government on issues including media control and corruption – was arrested.

His posts “violated interests of the state”, authorities said.

Critics say that decree 147 will also expose dissidents who post anonymously to the risk of arrest.

Le Quang Tu Do, of the ministry of information and communications (MIC), told state media that decree 147 would “regulate behaviour in order to maintain social order, national security, and national sovereignty in cyberspace”.

Aside from the ramifications for social media companies, the new laws also include curbs on gaming for under-18s, designed to prevent addiction.

Game publishers are expected to enforce a time limit of an hour a game session and not more than 180 minutes a day for all games.

Grundiad

 

[Gorbles]

It looks like Vietnam have done it. Do we have any Vietnamese here?

Social media users in Vietnam on platforms including Facebook and TikTok will need to verify their identities as part of strict new internet regulations that critics say further undermine freedom of expression in the communist country.

The law, which comes into force on Christmas Day, will compel tech companies operating in Vietnam to store user data, provide it to authorities on request, and remove content the government regards as “illegal” within 24 hours.

Decree 147, as it is known, builds on a 2018 cybersecurity law that was sharply criticised by the US, EU and internet freedom advocates who said it mimics China’s repressive internet censorship.

In October, blogger Duong Van Thai – who had almost 120,000 followers on YouTube, where he regularly recorded livestreams critical of the government – was jailed for 12 years on charges of publishing anti-state information.

Months earlier, leading independent journalist Huy Duc, the author of one of the most popular blogs in Vietnam – which took aim at the government on issues including media control and corruption – was arrested.

His posts “violated interests of the state”, authorities said.

Critics say that decree 147 will also expose dissidents who post anonymously to the risk of arrest.

Le Quang Tu Do, of the ministry of information and communications (MIC), told state media that decree 147 would “regulate behaviour in order to maintain social order, national security, and national sovereignty in cyberspace”.

Aside from the ramifications for social media companies, the new laws also include curbs on gaming for under-18s, designed to prevent addiction.

Game publishers are expected to enforce a time limit of an hour a game session and not more than 180 minutes a day for all games.

Grundiad

I'm not Vietnamese but this seems pretty bad?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm curious to see the degree to which the use of social media declines or becomes jsut more social and less political.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm curious to see the degree to which the use of social media declines or becomes jsut more social and less political.

Or the other way around. As Perchik says in Fiddler on the Roof, "Everything's political."