[Kim_Bruning]

Weaker groups (such as the victims of family, domestic and sexual violence) are the ones who are protected most by anonymity.

Take away anonymity and the abusers will have a much easier time finding their victims (back). And/or the abused will need to forgo using social media.

[loceng]

Verified doesn't mean identities are publicly displayed, pseudonyms are still a possibility for public details if a platform would create such a structure.

[Kim_Bruning]

Creates blackmail potential.

[loceng]

Sorry, how? I'd appreciate if you walk me through your thinking.

[Kim_Bruning]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26681969

And just when I answer, this happens to reinforce our faith in humanity %-) . Blackmail not even required!

[Kim_Bruning]

https://haveibeenpwned.com/ is a good starting point?

Short version: Data that isn't online can't get breached.

[loceng]

So then perhaps having a system where if worried about stalking from someone then the government can have a linked account to a "real name pseudonym" - which then the person verifies with, so if that gets leaked in a platform's database - then it's to the fake name.

But yes, ultimately being offline can provide most likely highest level of privacy - and then if wanting to not be connected to any verification system, then there are the myriad of problems like managing out people from bullies to bad actors from network(s) of verified users.

[Kim_Bruning]

And then we could have real name pseudo-pseudonyms, and real name pseudo-pseudo-pseudonyms.

Alternately, we could recognize that having the highest profile verified account on one's service (eg. Twitter) does not -in fact- prevent someone from violating a service's TOS. But it sure does allow one to deplatform people one disagrees with!