Question for the masses because I’m curious:
What do you think social media would be like if there was no anonymity?
Is it fair to say some people behave differently online because of anonymity?
Would it be good or bad if everything you posted could be tied back to you by your friends, family, employer, etc?
Some obvious concerns people express:
- personal safety
- freedom to express views contrary to community, government, etc without retaliation
- fear of stigmas related to support, education, etc for stigma topics like mental health, sexuality, etc
What reasons do you have for not wanting to own your online identity other than being able to talk trash without being identified? Some people are public and still talk a lot of trash, looking at you Twitter.
You you got doxed, what do you think the impact would be just related to social media conduct?
Edit: With the introduction of online protections for minors, how does that affect the question?
Not from a political standpoint but from a technology one, how do you see that even working?
I think there should be two parallel networks:
anonymous one run by private corporations or volunteers with heavy moderation and the company taking full responsibilityp for anything posted there. pretty much what EU is trying to establish. You want to make money of anonymous posts? You take financial responsibility for making sure there’s nothing illegal on the platform. You could still have right leaning sites but with no misinformation or harassment. Fedivers instances that notoriously post illegal content would get the same treatment as neo-nazi sites.
publicly owned platforms (like mastodon instances) available for everyone for free but with no anonymity: you want to make something public, complain about something or simply interact with normal people you can always go there. Less moderation would be needed so it would be cheaper to run. Users will be responsible for the things they post, not the platform.
This way if Twitter is unable to moderate their content you block it and people would have public instances as an alternative. We would see if running a platform like that with proper moderation is still profitable. If not they would start charging people or shut down. I don’t think losing sites like Facebook or Twitter would a big problem if we had public alternatives.
Both of those ideas are stupid. All online platforms should be regulated like public utilities and everyone should be allowed to go by a pseudonym if they want to.