People are more toxic when they're anonymous, but de-anonymizing people isn't a solution to toxicity.
I don't want to give up the ability for gay/trans/whatever people in oppressive societies to express themselves because someone was mean to me on Twitter once.
There are platforms out there that will enforce real name policies. You're free to leave communities that don't and enjoy a theoretical community where people are held up to standards if these policies work. You could even add your information to your account description if you don't care about your data and want to shape the community to your liking by setting an example for others. Just don't take down the rest of the internet with you because you don't care. I'm not in the Equifax leak or in any other American credit rating provider leak, so leave me out of your weird post-privacy world, thank you very much.
>Advertisers and crooks already have under-the-counter access to our private data (via Equifax, etc.), but we don't get to benefit from it.
We shouldn't throw away the concept just because we haven't executed it well.
The actual problem is our obsession with free stuff and knowing who to trust. Trust should be with family, friends, and the people you know. Then the trust reduces the further someone is from you in the socal graph. That's why I'm big on Web of Trust. You can't (and shouldn't) make people trust those you think they ought to trust. People should choose for themselves.
Posting comments and content should have skin in the game, you're absolutely right about that. Being able to post things consequence free is what leads to more trolling and spam. It shouldn't be contingent on your identity though. Micropayments are a great for this. If you had to stake a tiny amount of money for each comment, I think it would reduce spam and trolling.
This is the popular refrain, but really its about providing tools for HUMINT, signature reduction, and other covert operations of the US government and its proxies.
For instance, this is why the Tor Project is funded primarily by DARPA and the State/Defense Depts -- objectively speaking among the most violent organizations on the planet -- rather than actual dissident groups.
I disagree with this unpopular idea so I'm going to mark it as spam...
If you want to interact with people trusting that they can be held accountable for bad behaviour, you can do that on these platforms.
If you want to interact with people free to express themselves without fear of getting "held accountable" for "bad behaviour" - knowing that there is some disagreement on what constitutes bad behaviour and not trusting everyone who's able to "hold people accountable" - to get them fired - to share your views on this, you can do that on platforms like this one.
This hasn't worked. Not once. Full stop.
IRC continues to be the best place to have real conversations. Discord is pretty great too and even has built in alt support.
These are all opt-in verification mechanisms, likely with the main purpose of protecting the rights of influencers and other content creators so that the platforms keep making money off them.
I'm talking about a single federal government-run identity provider that obsoletes all the above schemes. That's what we need and where we are headed, whether we like it or not. It is absurd that we still rely on SSNs and home address verification in 2022.
Sometimes you need to know who a person is, most of the time you don't.
I don't need to know who you are to sell you a cup of coffee, or really anything you are paying for in full.
If I'm lending you money, I need to know to my satisfaction that you are who you say you are, in case I need to find you later to collect. That's my problem and your problem to work out. The Federal Government has no role here.
Too bad. They already have this power -- and more, they can un-life you -- and always have, and always will until they get replaced in the next revolution.
Probably impossible with the current "print $$$ and outsource" culture in Washington.
Advertisers and crooks already have under-the-counter access to our private data (via Equifax, etc.), but we don't get to benefit from it.
Let's get over our misguided ideological fetishization of "privacy" that we adopted when we read a fantasy book by George Orwell in middle school and implement a proper identity scheme for the 21st century.