[thomassmith65]

Pseudonymity is sufficient to curb most antisocial behaviour on social media. A site operator doesn't need to know a malicious user's name but the operator should be able to permanently block someone.

It isn't necessary for anyone to be the arbiter of truth, but some body should be the arbiter of good taste. That someone doesn't need to be the government; it can be the community. Since good taste is subjective, it should be defined democratically.

At this point in history, it seems that unless social media has a mechanism to promote civilised behaviour, society will lose the ability to advance and improve.

[lordnacho]

It's not that easy to block someone. It's easy to block a particular account, sure.

But there are now people who purposefully make a bunch of accounts to spread lies.

> that unless social media has a mechanism to promote civilised behaviour

We need more Dangs.

He is maybe the major reason this forum is still decent. Tasteful moderation is really hard, I'd say the vast majority of Reddit subs don't have good moderation.

[thomassmith65]

Anonymity leads to the multiple accounts issue. Pseudonymity addresses that. Eg: "We don't know the name of the person behind this identifier in real life, but we see we blocked them last year, so we will deny their request to open a new account with us"

You and I agree the moderation here on HN is fantastic. There is a minority of people who would prefer HN allow spam, bigotry, calls to violence, revenge porn, snuff content, etc. A large community - a nation, for example - should have the ability to 'tyrannize' an antisocial minority into enforcing some base level of standards. For example, at a minimum, to prevent a site operator from showing those types of content to users who do not specifically request them.