What is "true anonymity"? The law is fairly clear that you cannot engage in illegal activity whether acting anonymously or otherwise.

The inability to monitor all illegal activity is a trade-off we accept as a society to maintain the right to anonymity. You'd rather we sign that right away for some supposed guarantee of safety? A guarantee made by the synthesis of your government and your corporations?

Nothing of the sort. I think anonymity is a privilege that is granted and can be enjoyed while engaging with society or online however anon chooses, up to the point where anon's actions breaks the law.

It's a classic fear vs freedom dichotomy. We are both being a little intellectually dishonest, and should perhaps frame the question a little differently. To answer your question:

> would you like to live in a world where someone could baselessly and maliciously accuse you of rape or other defaming acts without consequence

Yes, if the alternative is that I can be held criminally liable for hosting a web forum that doesn't require some form of government enforced ID system. How could it be any other way (genuine question)?

> How could it be any other way (genuine question)?

The alternative is how things currently work. Meta is not being held criminally liable here, and people are allowed to use the platform anonymously so long as they do not engage in criminal behavior.

> It's a classic fear vs freedom dichotomy

Thats a false dichotomy. Many kinds of freedom actually result in less freedom. A society where you are free to sell youself into slavery is less free. A society where 10 year olds are free to work in the coal mines is less free. A society where you are free to ignore legitinate court orders is less free because people will turn to vigilante justice instead.

all you say is true but that isn’t a false dichotomy defense. it’s “just” a refutation of his position. to contest a false dichotomy you need to explain that there is a third choice.

i find the fear vs freedom dichotomy to be a legitimate set of choices. you didn’t argue against fear, you argued against individual freedom vs societal freedom. which is not what the gp was going on about.

IMO the tradeoff is freedoms vs. protections. People can agree to exchange certain freedoms for protections, and codify this exchange into law.

For example many countries have mandated seatbelt laws. In this case the freedom to not wear a seatbelt is exchanged for health and safety. Someone could claim this is done out of fear, and that's not completely untrue. And as you allude, fear can be totally rational and backed by data, thus fear vs. freedom is not an unreasonable exchange.

True anonymity is not illegal. To be anonymous don’t reveal your identity to anyone on line. If you do that you are not sharing your identity with anyone to get a subpoena.

Apple is trying to keep your identity secret on your device so that they cant verify anyone only devices.

> True anonymity is not illegal.

I'll use the exact same kind of argument to make the opposite point:

Facebook answering a legal subpoena isn't illegal.

> To be anonymous don’t reveal your identity to anyone on line.

They are not anonymous from Facebook perspective.

I agree Facebook answering any subpoena is legal for Facebook. Facebook doesn't get to argue the validity of the subpoena. That is the job of the defendant.

Exactly I'm not sure of your point. If an organization gets a subpoena they turn over what they know. If they don't know they can't hand it over.

I don't think you are making the opposite point but I will try to be open minded. From my perspective we agree.

They could/would be anonymous if they hide their identity from facebook as well.

Are we punishing those who wish to remain anonymous but do not have the technical ability to do so. Is there a right to anonymous in the EU?

No-one is saying that anonymity itself is illegal, just that if you commit a crime expect "them" to try to unmask your anonymity using legal process.

My point is simply if nobody has any information worth subpoenaing that is privacy.

Not sure, but you might be confusing anonymity with privacy. I'm all in favor of privacy, but keeping your identity secret while doing stuff in public (or on some internet forum) is not really a matter of privacy. There may be a few cases where anonymity is warranted, but often it just enables bad behavior.

It's the realities of enforcement that concern me. If you say (as it appears you are implying though I may be wrong!) "we don't really need anonymity online, so we should enforce verifiable identity in all online and public interactions" then you open the door to (potentially tyrannical) government involvement of all internet services. For example, the government now dictates how you handle authentication. You can no longer use a simple email + password usage of a public service.

You can't have both.

If anonymity isn't allowed why can't advertisers track you in the EU without your consent.

What privacy are you in favor of? Identities should be private when in public? Until someone requests it and then it goes into the public record?

Who the hell ever pitched Facebook as "truly anonymous" in the first place? And how is it news that Facebook responds to legal subpoenas? This story is 'dog bites man', why does it even exist?