I mean, nothing would stop you from making a fake identity, and friending other anonymous people, and posting spicy memes. But you can do that on mastodon today, right? This is for the cases where you want to prove your identity. If most people use it that way, then the anonymous people would be little subnets that are either separate from the main graph or connected by only a few nodes. Typical users would* have dozens of people vouching for them, who each have dozens of people vouching for them, etc, which is strong evidence that they're who they say they are.

* in some hypothetical future where this gets made and is wildly successful

That's exactly the point of small social circles. You can segment your audience as a broadcaster based on shared interests, language, and understanding.

The vast majority of the Internet doesn't need to read your shit posting. However, a small group of friends might find that appealing. If no one finds that content useful, amusing, or interesting... you'd be screaming at a wall. Isn't that exactly how it should be?

That's... not relevant? OP was talking about a system that requires tapping phones to connect and using friends of friends to form secondary connections.

This is why I have a burner sim for online accounts requiring a phone number. (Looking at you Telegram...)

Whoops, my bad.

I also maintain two phone numbers but for different reasons. I hate spam.

> My coworkers and family really wouldn't appreciate my shit posting.

Shit posting is one of the biggest forms of toxicity online. It would be nice if it went away by tying posts to real people. Some people don't care and would shitpost anyway, but most people only shitpost because nobody knows who they really are.

This comment rhymes with the justifications for Real Name policies. They don't work.

All real name policies do is make many LGBTQ+ people feel unwelcome.

Facebook does tie posts to real people. It doesn’t work. People are just as toxic.

It would appear there is some irony in this SoftTalker.

What do you define as shit posting?

Not the person you're replying to, but I agree with them. For me shitposting is discussing in bad faith.

But what is it?

Being contrarian for no other reason than to annoy, or trying to get under someone’s skin, ignoring their arguments and riding roughshod over what they’re trying to say. Things people avoid doing in real life because very soon after doing them you find yourself disliked.

Oh my god, yes. It's like most online content has to be communicated in crappy memes, sarcastic quotes, and weird existential dread responses. It drives me insane.

The bar for "shitposting you don't want your coworkers to know about" is so low nowadays that it's almost a free speech issue to allow anonymous accounts.

If you post about not like drag shows in front of children, that itself is harmless enough in a vacuum but polarizes people to a serious extent

I think maybe it depends how you define shit posting. If you mean trolling or posting extremely negative and low-effort content, then I suppose I agree with you about it being toxic.

But if shitposting is just off-color jokes or talking about topics you might want to keep private, I don't see that as a problem. I think a lot of great internet content wouldn't exist without some form of anonymity. I certainly wouldn't share genuine insights into my job without anonymity. People wouldn't share sexual content or secrets. Many people wouldn't share anything at all no matter how tame or appropriate. My wife over thinks when she writes and is always afraid she isn't wording things well. She posts absolutely nothing outside of Reddit.

My definition of shit posting is the stuff I say on Reddit. The highest rated comment on my previous account there would likely get me banned here. :)

I'd say that then this hypothetical new social network just wouldn't be suitable for Reddit-like shitposting.

Keep Reddit and Twitter for that, this-new-thing for real-identity real talk.

I don't see a problem and I'd love it.

Grow a thick skin. Instead of shielding people from real world things expose them to it. In a few generations they get used to it/learn to use it.

Like Google deliberately fucking up their image search and not releasing a proper face search... because rainbow ponies would fall from the sky.

I am not even sure how this is an actual position to be defended.

Writing anonymously or with pseudonyms is as old as feather pens. It allowed people to denounce tyrants and allowed women to publish their writings.

To force everyone to show an id to publish is either very naive or ill-intented to push us into a full Orwellian framework.

'Shitposting' or scorn writing is the price to pay so that anonymity is there for when you _truly_ need it.

As people who don’t do this, I prefer to stay anonymous. Anonymous writing has a long and good history with some bad apples. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwafrr

> It would be nice if it went away by tying posts to real people. Some people don't care and would shitpost anyway, but most people only shitpost because nobody knows who they really are.

If this was true and the only explanation, HN should be much worse than it is and Facebook should be much better than it is.

Even as a person who hardly ever get in trouble with mods I have come to deeply appreciate the possibility to have accounts or profiles totally disconnected from reality.

Many stories we see couldn't have been shared if a hard link to a real identity was necessary, and many questions could not ve asked.

For example random22username12 asking about some technical aspect about some software is not a problem.

But if he is Firstname Lastname from Some Company it might get him in trouble, as it might tell others what they are working on.

I had a conversation recently about the problems of social media and the growing extremes of political viewpoints. We agreed the a good part of the problem is partially caused by the online echo chamber but mostly by the increasing physical isolation of people in the real world. In the past the majority of men would have worked in manual labor with lots of other people, women would have worked at home and spent a lot more time getting to know their neighbours, now we work in isolation on a screen and stay at home without integrating with a community on a daily basis like times past. This allows people's views to go unchallenged and reduces the middle ground we all depended upon. Previously our vees would be challenged and our standing in our community would depend on our views. To go back to your point about anonymity should we be posting stuff online that we know our physical peers would have a problem with. Anonymity has its place I'm just not sure where the line is drawn.

To some degree, I agree. But I also grew up before social media. Very little has changed about the fundamental ugliness of human behavior we try to tuck into a corner.

As someone who was seriously hurt by forced conformity, I’m not exactly pining for the way things used to be.

It wasn’t that long ago when people were expected to drink themselves to death rather than seek help.

> My coworkers and family really wouldn't appreciate my shit posting. :)

Hey, here’s a thought. Maybe if there were any locally observable consequences to that behavior you’d stop and the Internet would be a better place…

The “shit posting” referring to my dark, sarcastic humor. It gets upvotes on Reddit but I try to keep it off Hacker News. :)

I worry more about my parents reading about how I see my childhood or a future employer knowing I’m bipolar.

And there are consequences to my behavior online.

Kayodé Lycaon is my identity in the furry fandom. People know me in real life under this name. I’m published under this name.

In a lot of ways, my legal identity is the pseudonym. I think of myself as Kayodé more than [legal name].