Let’s say the internet gets so bad that it becomes almost impossible to carry on a civilized conversation on a social network or to avoid a flood of anonymous emails. The people become fed up and can’t take it anymore. A revolution takes place and a miracle happens: every one is required to get a real id that can be traced back an actual person. This id is then required to do anything on the internet.
How many people are going to still post death threats, character assassinations, or make racist or sexist comments. How many people are are going to email you saying they’re a Nigerian prince that wants to give you money. It would sure go a long way to cleaning up some of the cesspools that make up social networking and the garbage pit that is email today.
Knowing who you are cuts both ways. A woman trying to hide from an abusive boyfriend or husband would want to keep her identity unknown. People facing political persecution would like to keep a low profile.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle to setting up ids would be verification. How do you prove someone is who they say they are when documents can be easily forged and fake identities created. You could use finger prints or eye scans, but the effort to set up the infrastructure to do so would be massive.
Then there is the issue of maintaining the information in a safe and secure manner. We couldn’t rely on any countries government. They wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to use it to track people. It would have to be an independent agency.
Is setting up such a system unfeasible? Even if all the hurdles could be overcome and a real id system could be created, is that something we would want? Are we better off with the way it is today and just live with its ills or relying on mods and spam filters to keep thing somewhat under control.
I’m aware that Web 3.0 is making strides in this area. It remains to be seen if it will be viable.
How many people are going to still post death threats, character assassinations, or make racist or sexist comments.
Have you seen twitter and what named public figures say all the time and the comments from verified named accounts below?
I don’t believe we should have to link our personal info, but I do think we should have somewhat consistent ID that are confirmed linked to a person in order to gain some form of trust.
When you can just spin up random throwaways you can say whatever you want at no cost of time or money to you.
Is setting up such a system unfeasible?
yes. not only would such a policy be messy to implement & partially unenforcable on the current internet for various reasons (look at what’s happening with porn site here in the usa, where some states are literally trying to add a real id system & it’s failing) it’d also be a law that hurts us well-meaning people (specifically, marginalized sections of populations that have a reason to take privacy seriously, such as lgbt people in non-gay friendly locations, for example) moreso than trolls. our privacy is already eroded enough imo, so if a real id system were to come out i’d just quit using the internet. & i’m sure a large chunk of the internet would do the same.
you assume that such a system would stop all death threats & racist/sexist comments & make the internet a safe place but… why would it? bad people are shameless. if a real id system catches on, but moderation doesn’t change, it’s more likely that these people will just put up their real names & continue doing what they’re doing. there are a lot of people who are already not ashamed whatsoever of having those comments attached to their identity right now, i mean look at how many <real name>s are on twitter & facebook & all that willingly posting hateful comments with their real name today.
look i get what you’re going for in spirit & why you want this system to be a thing. but the reason so much toxicity is on modern social media in the first place is simply because companies allow it, either by not spending enough on their moderation staff or, in cases like reddit, just by turning a blind eye to it. so, why not just be direct? why not regulate the companies rather than the consumers? imo a law that requires tech companies to take a zero-tolerance policy to hate speech & scams, as well as to actually spend enough on their moderation staff to allow that, would be much cleaner, safer & effective than a real id system
How would we make sure politicians and enforcement agencies even enforce such policies? Especially with lobbying and all that… ~Strawberry
Before writing the post, I thought it could be a good thing. By the time I listed all the drawbacks, I changed my mind. I made the post anyway to see what others thought. Many of you have pointed out even more issues with it. So far, no one has had anything good to say about it. Great feedback.
You could use finger prints or eye scans, but the effort to set up the infrastructure to do so would be massive.
I am not so sure whether that’s true. If people accept that, it could be done on a large scale, and the interest by federal states and technology companies is already as I assume.
Even if all the hurdles could be overcome and a real id system could be created, is that something we would want?
No. There are too many drawbacks of such a system. For example, the commodification of biometrics and other personal data by private tech companies would further decrease human dignity. Biometrics could too easily lead to discrimination as many biometric features reveal pathological and/or biological conditions. For examples, a certain range of fingerprint patterns can be related to some vascular diseases.
If your property is secured by biometric data, there is also a danger that thieves physically assault and intimidate the property owner to get access to the property. The result could be an irreversible damage to the owner that could by far exceed the value of the property they want to protect. In 2005, for example, thieves chopped off a man’s finger to steal his car which was protected by a fingerprint recognition system.
If a person’s biometric data is compromised, it cannot be reissued like a password could. That would leave this person vulnerable for future identification processes and their potential misuse.
I could elaborate much more on this, but I guess you got the point. If we continue turning human beings into data points by using biometric data, we dehumanize the person imo. The issue goes far beyond privacy and surveillance as it is much more about human dignity and individual autonomy. In the end, it is a threat to democracy.