[rirze]

Fundamentally un-American.

That being said, many countries across the world already do this to eliminate burner phones. And many messaging apps require a phone number anyways so this basically locks down anonymous messaging through a phone.

[rockskon]

Well - it's not exactly a surprise that all these non-American countries engage in un-American practices.

It's much more concerning when said practices are undertaken by the U.S.

Just because other countries do something isn't a justification to bring the practice into the U.S. despite that being a justification used with increasing prevalence these days.

[cwillu]

American exceptionalism was always a lie; name an “un-American” practice, and I'll show you a piece of American foreign policy.

[mindslight]

A lie, or an ideal to try and live up to, depending on the context. In the context of discussing liberty-destroying privacy invasions it's an ideal, and we should not be so quick to dismiss it.

[brightball]

Violations of the US Bill of Rights.

Yes they occur. Yes the US does it. Every violation of it should have lost in court already but courts have a way of interpreting things based on their beliefs rather than original intent.

[trumpdong]

It's hardly un-American if America does it the most, is it?

[cucumber3732842]

>Just because other countries do something isn't a justification to bring the practice into the U.S.

I need to know whether these other countries are rich western europe before I know whether to agree with you or to cook up some snide rebuttal.

Joking, obviously. And by "joking" I mean mocking a specific type of person and set of beliefs that is who is a) bad b) too common around here.

[axus]

Free, anonymous political speech is the bedrock of American freedom. Also, guns

[IAmBroom]

America, where the Amendments to the Constitution start counting at "2".

Also, apparently ends there, too.

[em-bee]

there still are a bunch of viable messaging apps/services that work without a phone number:

matrix, wire, deltachat, threema, maybe jabber/xmpp (depends on their support of encryption). any others?

[kgwxd]

> many messaging apps require a phone number

But not all, so what's the actual point?

[rirze]

If a messaging app ever gets the attention of government regulators, it must succumb to this verification.

I don't know any way to avoid this.

[kgwxd]

How would they enforce that on a decentralized communication platform?

[hnav]

outlawing the platform

[trumpdong]

Did you ever read about how the creator of Session was forced to flee Australia and move to Switzerland?