[onjectic]

We need to have a serious conversation about the pros and cons of anonymity on public online forums. It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication, most of us see the harm, but we also don’t want to swing towards mass surveillance(which is a very real risk).

EDIT: By unnatural I am referring to not knowing who you are talking to, not knowing the slightest thing about them, our brains don’t process this aspect for what it is, instead we fill in this identity with our imaginations. Perhaps there was a better word for this than unnatural, but to me its especially unnatural because it doesn’t really occur in nature(at least not easily), where as communication across long distances or time happens all the time in nature. TLDR: It’s unnatural that we no longer even know if a comment was written by a human.

EDIT2: I am not strongly in favor of removing anonymity from the internet. I don’t know what the answer is.

[krapp]

Any form of communication other than grunting and howling from trees is "objectively an unnatural form of communication."

Attaching your real world identity to every interaction you have on the internet is no more objectively natural than doing otherwise, and more of a burden than we place on interactions in the real world. I don't exchange my drivers license and SSL with everyone I talk to.

We don't need to have the serious conversation, we've had it, and the false dichotomy you're presenting here is invalid. We don't have to choose one or the other. Anonymity has been well established in every free society as legally and morally defensible and a necessity for free speech and a free state for decades, to the point of including some degree of anonymity from one's own government.

Moderation beyond strictly legal content is acceptable. Anonymity is also acceptable. 4chan can be 4chan, and other places can not be 4chan. Free speech does not guarantee you a platform, much less all platforms. It doesn't require me to put a target on my back, either.

[intended]

While the point made on unnatural communication is undefined, these three positions are in conflict.

- The updated visa instructions

- we have had this conversation

- Moderation beyond strictly legal content is acceptable.

I will say this shows the conversation hasn’t been had.

Moderation is most often achieved by the use of censorial powers on private platforms.

That this was private censorship is no longer acceptable to the current regime, and people who were enforcing private rules are now in a category of applicants that I assume includes criminals and enemies of the state.

If it is an acceptable role, then it must be done well.

If it is an unacceptable criminal role, then it must be prohibited well.

Either way - people have to make that call and build a consensus on it.

[krapp]

>I will say this shows the conversation hasn’t been had.

It has been had. But you seem to require some objectively correct and universally agreed upon consensus that will never exist.

>Moderation is most often achieved by the use of censorial powers on private platforms.

"censorial powers on private platforms" are and have been acceptable since the dawn of mass communications. Even Ben Franklin when he ran a newspaper refused to run stories he considered too libelous (although he just as often ran such stories, exercising personal bias in his decisions.) The entire rationale behind the First Amendment is that it binds the government from interfering with free expression, because that right belongs to the people, implicit as it is in the concept of the marketplace of ideas, and freedom of association.

Again, the conversation has been had, and the matter has been settled at least for most people. That the current regime disagrees doesn't prove anything any more than disagreement with anything else. People disagree that the world is round, that doesn't mean the matter is still in dispute beyond a reasonable doubt.

>and people who were enforcing private rules are now in a category of applicants that I assume includes criminals and enemies of the state.

If they commit crimes, have them arrested for those crimes. If they violate TOS (even if they happen to be a sitting President), ban them. Otherwise even criminals and traitors have the same rights as everyone else. Again, this is well established and shouldn't be controversial.

> If it is an acceptable role, then it must be done well. > If it is an unacceptable criminal role, then it must be prohibited well.

what kind of force is "must" implying here, and how is "well" being defined?

We do have legal frameworks in place intended to do what you're proposing, but people are imperfect and may make mistakes or act in ways you might consider to be in error, without falling afoul of criminality. But that's acceptable. We don't abandon rights because they can't be defined or defended perfectly.

[intended]

Perhaps this will translates the ground reality into the framework you seem to be using.

1) The conversation has been had

2) There are people who are making a concerted effort to overturn the status quo

3) They have decreed that content moderation workers are a category of workers which is not to be granted entry to the USA.

You can say the conversation has been had, as much as you want - which is your freedom and right. However some people have decided they don’t like the status quo and want to change it.

You are preaching to the choir here. I would love for you to convince THOSE people that they are party to this agreement.

[krapp]

>I would love for you to convince THOSE people that they are party to this agreement.

That's a different and much more difficult problem, though.

Why do we keep electing fascists to power with an explicit mandate to undermine our freedoms, out of a categorical rejection of post Enlightenment values and democracy and a desire for ethnic cleansing and race war?

Why are we accelerating the normalization of theocracy and conspiracy theory while rejecting the validity of science, secularism and critical thought?

Why is the only truly inalienable right in the US the right to keep and bear arms, and why is it still so vigorously defended despite failing spectacularly at its one stated purpose?

There will always exist people who want to change that status quo. Unfortunately you can't force fascists to not be fascists, and the best answer I'm aware of is to not allow them to gain a foothold anywhere. But we've regressed culturally so far that fascism, racism, antisemitism and other formerly extremist right-wing ideals are now considered legitimate and credible points of view. We can't even agree on the existence of a consensus reality where facts even exist, much less that the Nazis are actually wrong.

I do think part of the solution is to preserve the right of anonymity on the internet and the right of private platforms to moderate content as they see fit, although that obviously has its own externalities and issues. I don't think that, say, repealing Section 230 and forcing all platforms to allow any legal content or requiring a license and legal ID to post online or any of the other "solutions" to the "problem" of free speech online would help more than they would harm.

Beyond that, I don't know. How do we get people to stop electing fascists and stop treating groypers and incels like intellectual sophonts and cultural leaders? How do we get people to take things seriously again?

[intended]

You get that by dealing with the absolute capture of the news and media ecosystem, something that has been lumbering along since the 1960s.

People voted based on the information they had. The information system they had has been mapped out. If this were gaming, the “meta” is known. One group played the meta to the hilt. Others lament the failure of the spirit.

I get that people may be hesitant to leave the familiarity of known territory for what looks like malignant chaos. But there is a fight to be had, rules to be learnt and ways to counteract the tendencies you are concerned about.

I am sadly not at the point where I can both raise the issue, and point you to sources of information that are pertinent to the stage of your journey.

There’s actual work on misinformation propagation, efficacy of moderation, the mechanics of how the media environment is being used. Or there are places where you can contribute code and labor to learn/build as you go.

[pjc50]

Plenty of people are happy to publish calls for war crimes in the newspapers under their own name, or on the Secretary for Defence letterhead.

[onjectic]

I’m not sure how this counter argues my observation. You seem to be implying that the end goal would be to stop people from saying certain things you find abhorrent. Humans won’t ever stop doing that, it’s that it would sometimes be nice to know that the person presenting themselves as a disillusioned American voter is actually on the opposite side of the planet.

[logicchains]

> It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication

Communication with people half the way across the globe at the speed of light is objectively unnatural too, should we ban that? There's no "we" calling for the end of online anonymity excepts for spooks and people who believe people should be identified and punished for expressing opinions they disagree with.

[seanp2k2]

The dystopian surveillance state is already here: https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQ

[metadope]

I don't think of myself as anonymous. I am a glittering grain of sand on a beach. I am anonymous only as long as nobody cares to pay attention. If somebody (or some three-letter-agency) decided to focus on me, I'm fairly certain they could decipher my identity and 'de-anonymize' ('demonize') me. But as long as I don't glitter too brightly, don't call too much attention to myself, I can remain safely pseudo-anonymous, just another caw in the cacaphony of the crowded beach.

> It’s objectively an unnatural form of communication

I agree. Short bits quick hits and spunk spits lead to epileptic fits from social halfwits and, that's what we produce and consume. More so, when we imagine we are anonymous. The random emotional inpulse spikes that flit across so many of our untrained anonymized minds leads to a noise floor that threatens to completely obliterate any signal.

There is value in anonymity. But I would love to participate in a smaller subset of the internet, where every participant is known, identified and associated with their real-world self. Such that no one feels so obscured and anonymously free to grafitti; where everyone is careful and concerned with their affect on the environment; where publication is a precise responsibility; where effort must be made or authority is lost.

((Kinda sorta like HN, but with blue checkmarks)/s)