| > There are also the situations of highly targeted minorities that would now be unable to protect themselves because you've made anonymity illegal. These people really do need anonymity to protect themselves. To reiterate, I was specifically talking about circumstances where people broadcast to mass audiences. If people of a certain minority want to congregate together in a private space to discuss things important to them as though they would in their own house, then they should have every right to do so in private. > And no amount of laws can protect someone from a hate mob attacking them, that doesn't care about the consequences. One of the only ways for many of these people to protect themselves, is to be anonymous. I don't know what world you live in, but I haven't seen a hate mob running down my street for a while. > Actually, it is possible with basically no amount of tech savviness. All you have to do is click the create new account button, on twitter, and you have just been given a pretty large amount of anonymity. > In order to have your twitter account de-anonymized, the government has to take pretty extreme actions, such as court orders That won't offer you much protection at all from the government. So you seem to have a lot of trust in warrants being issued justly, but also a great fear that the government will turn against you. It's not that hard to get a court order if the government has probable cause that you've committed a crime. There have been 55,000 warrants for US Facebook accounts since the start of 2020. This is not including national security requests, which Facebook is not legally allowed to disclose. https://transparency.facebook.com/government-data-requests/c... > Also, the original point that I was countering was this "pseudo-anonymous political discourse on open mainstream mass-broadcast social media". > So I am talking about specifically why anonymity, in the form of having the ability to do what people do now, which is create anonymous twitter accounts, and engage in political discourse. I'm glad we're back on the same page, so would you say that the culture of anonymous political discourse on social media has resulted a constructive political discourse? Is there nothing you'd change about it? |
Ok, and I think that it is important that highly targeted minorities are free to broadcast to mass audiences, without having to worry about being targeted or harrassed. Anyone who is fighting for civil rights, could become the target of mass hate and harassment, for both themselves and their friends and family, if the hate mob decides to target them.
If these groups did not have these protections, then it would only be the privileged, who would be able to express themselves to a wide audience. Other people, who are more frequently targeted, would no long have a voice.
> they should have every right to do so in private.
They should have the right to do that in public, as well, to a mass audience, while also being able to take actions to protect themselves from harassment, by being anonymous.
> but I haven't seen a hate mob running down my street for a while.
Women and minorities face a lot of harassment. It is not about a "physical" mob. There are more ways that mobs can target and harass people, than just some mob on the street engaging in physical violence.
I am not sure what to tell you, if you are not aware of all the threats and harassment that these people can get, from randos.
> So you seem to have a lot of trust in warrants being issued justly
Being forced to issue a warrant is another protection. That is much better, than if some random government official, just has access to that information, and can retaliate against you, without anyone being able to find out about it.
> also a great fear that the government will turn against you.
It is not just about some totalitarian regime. Instead it is about the in between stuff. Things like a no name burocrat, having your information, and using their power to target you, without there being a easy way for them to get caught.
Warrets and paper trails make it more difficult for government officials to abuse the information that they would otherwise have access to, if it was all available without a warrent.
> Is there nothing you'd change about it?
Yes, I would provide more ways for people to be even more anonymous, and provide stronger methods for people to protect themselves from retaliation, whether that be by random government employees, or random people on the internet.