[PaybackTony]

This is a very complicated topic that seems to see a lot of conflation, as it does in this article. It's really hard for a social network to maintain a balance, especially with how many try flooding them with very hard to verify, false information from misleading sources.

On our network, our plan moving forward is to allow our users to verify their identity privately with the platform to earn an "ID Verified" badge while still maintaining an anonymous public pseudonym if they choose. The idea being that others can trust the user is a real person and not some troll (paid or otherwise) while also allowing those that wish to have it to maintain anonymity publicly.

Just to give some insight into how this anonymity becomes a problem. On our platform, I watch in real-time people / actors from outside the U.S. posing as seemingly real people in the United States and posting propaganda. Not the obviously false stuff either. Carefully crafted political BS that is meant to simply move the needle ever so slightly on the desired targets -- arguably a case where anonymity is negatively affecting democracy. There is so much to this I could probably write an entire blog on it, it's ever irritating as someone running a platform but also quite interesting.

[ACow_Adonis]

on the flipside, like with my Facebook account, i hold and use it purely so that i can control what other people say about me and so i can stop them tagging me in photos, and i can track what information the network has on me. but I'm never going to engage on the site, and I'm sure as hell never going to speak or share my true opinions on there or ever link them to my true name. here on hacker news i try to politely limit myself to certain topics and positions.

in my country (Australia), there's some irony that i think our biggest problem with "foreign influence" isn't Russian or Chinese troll accounts, but genuine American accounts, media and American social media companies talking absolute crap and spreading the general phenomenon and quality of American politics worldwide. anonymity and Russian trolls aren't the problem when your mainstream spread so much FUD worldwide and largely serves the same purpose as those trolls but in a "legitimate" form. American media has far more reach, both in absolute power, influence and damage, than any subtle espionage agent or internet troll, and its personalities and commenters are happy to use their real names because their medium of influence is "legitimate" and they're commercially/socially rewarded for doing so. It seems, given the state of things, that the obsession with "Russian trolls and foreign actors" is prima facie absurd, and the limited influence they actually have compared to the elimination of sane discussion or valid analysis and criticism that will similarly be removed if forced to link back to real identification is something that should be considered in any cost benefit, as well as their relative effect compared to the bullshit consumerism/ partisanship/culture-war/ racist/religious/lobbyists/violent material that's seen as somehow "legitimate".

[bryan_w]

I've seen the same on various other forums and have been surprised/impressed how far their operations have improved over the years.