[isaacremuant]

What freedom of speech? The "first world countries" in Europe are slowly turning up the surveillance state to not let people online if they don't provide their IDs, they want to surveil every private conversation you have at home, if it uses the internet in any way, they'd love banning encryption, VPNs, etc... but you have freedom of speech? Except when talking about thinks that are deemed "pro enemy" (Russia or whoever it is this time around).

Come on, we're living in extremely authoritian governments that pretend to be something else.

[ycombigators]

Democracy cannot survive unless we find a way to ensure we know when are listening to the people that are part of our demos and NOT people that are outside of it, actively trying to destroy it.

We had freedom of speech in the west before the Internet. That speech was not anonymous.

[isaacremuant]

Hahaha. Fuck off with the "it's the enemy bullshit". You'll call people "russians" if they don't agree with your jingoism.

You'll try and get people against wars fired.

Post your name right now. Real name and address. If that's what you want, right?

[ycombigators]

You didn't address my point.

Which is unsurprising.

[isaacremuant]

I did. Your point puts national security of a boogeyman us vs them as paramount.

Your point gives the authoritian the ability to use "the red scare" as tactic to ensure no subversives appear. No one to challenge their power. We must monitor all to find "the infiltrated enemy".

Your bullshit is not new. It's been done all throughout history and it's always just an excuse to suppress threats to individual power. Political parties are proscribed because "they're working for foreign actors and we deem them to be treasonous".

[ycombigators]

Subversives...

... you mean late night comedians I'm guessing?

[mkleczek]

Anonymity is not a prerequisite to freedom of speech.

Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.

Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.

[seneca]

> Anonymity is not a prerequisite to freedom of speech.

I couldn't disagree more. The vast majority of papers the founders of the US published to argue against tyrannical government were written anonymously.

> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.

This is a cliche "think of the children" argument. Stripping away anonymity is a gargantuan problem, and enables authoritarian regimes to punish dissent. Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.

> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.

This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron. The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.

[ycombigators]

This is coming from someone that voted in an authoritarian regime isn't it. Irony is very ironic.

[mkleczek]

> This is a cliche "think of the children" argument. Stripping away anonymity is a gargantuan problem, and enables authoritarian regimes to punish dissent.

So we agree: authoritarian regimes are a gargantuan problem, not stripping away anonymity.

> Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.

Online predator almost killed my child - this is not a "very minor problem". At least not for me.

> This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron.

It is not bout things _I_ don't like but things that _we (society)_ don't like. In my country nazi symbols are forbidden in public space and I think it is a good thing. So yes - "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions".

> The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.

Why not? There are countries which governments are elected by citizens and are _trusted_ by citizens. Why would I want to be anonymous if I _trust_ people I elected?

[isaacremuant]

Almost killed your one child. Authoritarian governments have murdered many more.

At some point the disingenous concerned parents need to start dealing with their own parenting instead of pretending we need to live in 1984 just because your bad parenting requires it.

Your way has many more deaths of government dissenters. Stop using "death" as a scare tactic. Much like the "war on terror" supporters, it's a fraud.

[mkleczek]

I don’t know about any deaths (or imprisonment) of government dissenters in Poland (where I come from). Do you know any?

Maybe oppressive government and lack of freedom of speech is a problem in your country, I don’t know that and I’m sorry for you. My suggestion would be though, that you try to fix your government instead of anonymously requiring online anonymity because you’re afraid of your own government.

I guess here in Poland trying to protect people from theft and violence is more pressing issue than freedom of speech.

[isaacremuant]

My suggestion is that you learn about history. Because suppressing the ability to write anonymously and have private unmonitored conversations is paramount for political dissent. I'm sure you can find a moment in the history of Poland where having to look over your shoulders when you said something against government policies was a thing. Or are you blind to your own history?

> I guess here in Poland trying to protect people from theft and violence is more pressing issue than freedom of speech

I guess you're the kind that learned from the tactics of your oppressors from both sides and want to implement those in the guise of safety.

You don't need to remove civil rights to prevent theft and violence the same way you don't need to nuke a city to combat rape.

Tackle the real problem instead of removing the most fundamental of rights so you can suppress speech and dissent you dislike, which is all this is.

Very easily it becomes, you can't say this about party B or party A, you can't have this political position.

Give me a break.

Again, all these things posted by people who don't share their full name and address. Do it, the government will share yours anyway, voluntarily or not.

[isaacremuant]

Post your full name and address if you're so happy with lack of anonymity.

[mkleczek]

I’m sure you know the difference between publication of your personal data and making it accessible for trusted government officials.

[isaacremuant]

"trusted government officials" is such a funny line. Clearly you haven't seen how government workers work. Hint, they're usually not paid all that well and are not to be trusted.

In any case, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about, dude. Isn't that the line?

Clearly you can't live up by the standards you want to impose on others.

[isaacremuant]

> Anonymity is not a prerequisite to freedom of speech.

That's disingenous bullshit. From the likes of people who use their power imbalance to pretend their propaganda is truth and dissent is dangerous.

"Freedom of speech is ok but what you're doing is different" is the first step

> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.

You only need to pay attention to history to see what political totalitarianism means when there's no anonymity.

It's way worse than online trolls.

> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.

Said the dictator, who was accountable to no one. Those who hold the power shield themselves from accountability and want to use it as an excuse to prevent dissent.

[mkleczek]

Democracy for quite some time thrived in US (and for some shorter time in other western countries) even though there was no anonymity while free speech was guaranteed by the state. In other words: anonymity is not a solution for lack of free speech. I should be free to say whatever I want without being forced to hide behind a nickname.

Secondly: I think you are happy to not being the target of online violence. I have experience with teens on the brink of suicide caused by it.

[isaacremuant]

I have experience of people disappeared because of totalitarianism. Your teens on the brink of self harm are peanuts compared to state murder.

Try some other shitty propaganda.

[ycombigators]

Let me guess, it was Alex Jones.

Did he fall out of a window?

[isaacremuant]

Ah. This is it, folks. You're a liar and you project your lies. Incapable of realising how people have lived shit in history.

Go google "disappeared people in military dictatorships" and maybe, just maybe, you'll learn something about authoritians and how they dealt with "subversives".

Not everyone here lives in the US.

Your account is 17 hours old and you want to find the "enemy within". Aren't you the enemy within?

Demosntate you're not a foreign actor, according to your own rules, post your full name and address. Or maybe that's a stupid thing to do and anonymity is valuable?