ID verification on social media as a law - good or bad?

[West Bromwich Holme]

Sorry for the condensed title, character limit.

Although it has advantages, so they say, there are also many disadvantages, it's a "be careful what you wish for" situation.

Also, what do you define as social media, aside from Facebook and Twitter? Old-school phpBB and vBulletin forums from the 2000s (vBulletin was a POS piece of software in later installations, so I read)? Github? Bitbucket?

Github and Bitbucket are a grey area.

Yes, freedom of speech is an important issue, and the Elon Musk Twitter takeover's highlighted this, with a supposedly "woke" group of celebrities "cancelling" Twitter. But their accounts wouldn't be permanently deleted, AFAIK, they'd probably be soft-deleted.

State actors and groups like HBGary with astroturfing persona management software could be stopped, but equally, it would be difficult.

Anonymity online is needed, for example, do you really need to know/care who the author of a script on Github is or the identity of a username asking for advice on a marriage forum? (one popular American relationships forum would be screwed if the UK did enact such a law, presumably??)

I'm talking about this from a UK perspective, but it doesn't really matter where you are, as this issue is likely to be topical for some time to come.

[Ifreann]

Sorry for the condensed title, character limit.

Although it has advantages...

No it doesn't.

[Wansul]

Lowering the amount of bots posing as real people would be good, as would letting there be a verifiable way to enforce a potential age limit. Social media is really, [i]really[/i], bad for young people, and the only effective way to keep people from logging on to those sites before a certain age(somewhere in mid-late teens preferably) would be ID verification.

That said, it would basically delete any idea of privacy online, and that honestly outweighs any possible benefits. :(

[West Bromwich Holme]

Sorry for the condensed title, character limit.

Although it has advantages...

No it doesn't.

I re-edited that part!

[Fractalnavel]

Technically, this requirement would not necessarily reveal "who you are", just "you are a 'who'". And perhaps accompanied by "are you of age" (for some definition, perhaps varying per usage), or other claims that don't expose underlying detail.

There are existing "social networks" that require real names, either for use of the service at all, or for more privileged feature use / elevated status. An example (perhaps not the best, but the one that comes to mind) would be reviewers on Amazon. So there are already experiments in this area where one could get some idea of pros & cons in actual operation.

Privacy, anonymity, and pseudonym use are important, but then so is mitigating the abuses of these platforms by bad actors. And it's not just state-run botnets, but also the actions of many people when afforded anonymous communications.

Online anonymity is only one of the contributing factors to sociopolitical polarization and witch-hunt behaviors and the like, and the consequences of these.

Even with masking of some factors, it's possible to arrive at identities through combinations of factors from different sources. True data privacy can be hard to achieve. Unfortunately it seems to be working for bots - ? At least in the eyes of the average social network participant who is not equipped to distinguish such things.

So maybe, rather than requiring the presence of certain claims, it would be more to the point to require the absence of some qualities. And to publicly call them out when present. Such as visibly tagging accounts as suspected bots. Whole other can of worms there, but perhaps a better approach.

Just thinking out loud. My own reaction to the problems with social networks etc. has been to abandon them almost entirely. They are not a requirement for maintaining one's relationships. And they are poor sources of information at best.

Why do I hang around here? Mostly lurking. It's because there is a wide variety of views present, and somewhat broad selection of topics, and the local moderation does a more or less ok job.

And that's another possible response to social media issues - moderation. Probably a different discussion, depending on what direction the meta takes here.

[Esternial]

Lowering the amount of bots posing as real people would be good, as would letting there be a verifiable way to enforce a potential age limit. Social media is really, really, bad for young people, and the only effective way to keep people from logging on to those sites before a certain age(somewhere in mid-late teens preferably) would be ID verification.

That said, it would basically delete any idea of privacy online, and that honestly outweighs any possible benefits. :(

That really depends on the social media platform, where its data centres are located and the legislation in that country.

If it's all in the US then yeah, the CIA can just subpoena that data. If they moved to a country without that option for e.g. government agencies + stringent enough privacy/data governance legislation then I reckon it may be less of a problem. Whether that resolves all concerns, I have my doubts. I doubt social media platforms could be arsed to properly protect and govern people's private data, then again I have the same doubts about online crypto brokers and I use one of those as well.

[Australian rePublic]

Terrible idea. There are people that need to turn to social media organisations to anonymously bring attention to evil organisations that they were part of (e.g. religious cults). If the government needs to know who you are, they'll find you, ID or no ID

[95X]

Excellent topic as I believe this will come in some form one way or another some day.

I'm talking about this from a UK perspective, but it doesn't really matter where you are, as this issue is likely to be topical for some time to come.

This is exactly why, it seems like there's always an election somewhere and there's now the mainstream question of, "is this political opinion that of a real person, did they really post this, are they actually a citizen of the country/local area for which they have an opinion? For that matter are they even a qualified and registered voter?" Right now in the USA, there are people saying, "politician campaigned on this! They haven't done so! I'm not voting for them again!" Right now, anybody can post nearly anything to the internet even if it isn't true; there's no way of knowing if they voted in the previous election, whether or not they voted for that candidate to begin with, or even if it was written by a US Citizen in the first place.

This might even be sold to forum owners and so-called "social "media" networks" as a moderation tool—imagine if a forum or service has a 'one account per person' rule and requiring ID verification allows them to confront account owners on possible multiple accounts. Or someone who is told 'leave and do not return for the remainder of your life' now has no way to attempt to create a new account; the ID verification service would confirm they're prohibited and stop the registration process right there.

Before someone asks "how would sites collect and maintain this information", imagine if this was some kind of centralized identity database—paid for by excise taxes on services, users, or a combination of both ("the account has no charge however you pay a monthly excise tax similar to your phone bill"). Those who truly do not use online services would pay zero for a service they don't use. And if this were a centralized database, the actual identities of individuals could remain confidential while forums and online services get information in a format such as "Identity Number 234349186235097". But as that identity number points back to "Joe Q. Public, 1234 Residential St., Loonyland USA NNN01; Phone number 555-555-0191" and could be provided to someone such as law enforcement or a lawyer for a bona fide need it would have the effect of being able to identify them.

[Ifreann]

Excellent topic as I believe this will come in some form one way or another some day.

I'm talking about this from a UK perspective, but it doesn't really matter where you are, as this issue is likely to be topical for some time to come.

This is exactly why, it seems like there's always an election somewhere and there's now the mainstream question of, "is this political opinion that of a real person, did they really post this, are they actually a citizen of the country/local area for which they have an opinion? For that matter are they even a qualified and registered voter?" Right now in the USA, there are people saying, "politician campaigned on this! They haven't done so! I'm not voting for them again!" Right now, anybody can post nearly anything to the internet even if it isn't true; there's no way of knowing if they voted in the previous election, whether or not they voted for that candidate to begin with, or even if it was written by a US Citizen in the first place.

Are you proposing to link people's social media presence with a public record of their voting history?

This might even be sold to forum owners and so-called "social "media" networks" as a moderation tool—imagine if a forum or service has a 'one account per person' rule and requiring ID verification allows them to confront account owners on possible multiple accounts. Or someone who is told 'leave and do not return for the remainder of your life' now has no way to attempt to create a new account; the ID verification service would confirm they're prohibited and stop the registration process right there.

Before someone asks "how would sites collect and maintain this information", imagine if this was some kind of centralized identity database—paid for by excise taxes on services, users, or a combination of both ("the account has no charge however you pay a monthly excise tax similar to your phone bill"). Those who truly do not use online services would pay zero for a service they don't use. And if this were a centralized database, the actual identities of individuals could remain confidential while forums and online services get information in a format such as "Identity Number 234349186235097". But as that identity number points back to "Joe Q. Public, 1234 Residential St., Loonyland USA NNN01; Phone number 555-555-0191" and could be provided to someone such as law enforcement or a lawyer for a bona fide need it would have the effect of being able to identify them.

A single database containing the names, addresses, and phone number of everyone who uses the internet. Sounds like an enormously tempting target for criminals.

[Little Saigon]

I’m not in favor of it.

These companies already have enough of my information, and I don’t want them having access to any more.

[Mettaton-EX]

absolutely moronic idea, as shown by the fact that facebook (which at least in theory requires users to use their real names) is even more toxic than twitter or reddit

[Ifreann]

absolutely moronic idea, as shown by the fact that facebook (which at least in theory requires users to use their real names) is even more toxic than twitter or reddit

Techdirt in 2016: "Trolls Are Even Worse When Using Real Names"

[Ethel mermania]

absolutely moronic idea, as shown by the fact that facebook (which at least in theory requires users to use their real names) is even more toxic than twitter or reddit

Techdirt in 2016: "Trolls Are Even Worse When Using Real Names"

Go figure. Of all the counter intuitive things in the world.

As to the topic, I lean towards bad idea. Anonymity is helpful in public speech, though accountability would be nice.

[Rusozak]

absolutely moronic idea, as shown by the fact that facebook (which at least in theory requires users to use their real names) is even more toxic than twitter or reddit

Techdirt in 2016: "Trolls Are Even Worse When Using Real Names"

I had an idea for a short story where everyone in the world gets doxxed at once; Internet anonymity instantly ceases to exist to exist for everyone. I figured it would lead to a nearly instant drop in trolling and internet badmouthing (leash aggression applies to people too), but perhaps not.

[West Bromwich Holme]

Excellent topic as I believe this will come in some form one way or another some day.

I'm talking about this from a UK perspective, but it doesn't really matter where you are, as this issue is likely to be topical for some time to come.

This is exactly why, it seems like there's always an election somewhere and there's now the mainstream question of, "is this political opinion that of a real person, did they really post this, are they actually a citizen of the country/local area for which they have an opinion? For that matter are they even a qualified and registered voter?" Right now in the USA, there are people saying, "politician campaigned on this! They haven't done so! I'm not voting for them again!" Right now, anybody can post nearly anything to the internet even if it isn't true; there's no way of knowing if they voted in the previous election, whether or not they voted for that candidate to begin with, or even if it was written by a US Citizen in the first place.

This might even be sold to forum owners and so-called "social "media" networks" as a moderation tool—imagine if a forum or service has a 'one account per person' rule and requiring ID verification allows them to confront account owners on possible multiple accounts. Or someone who is told 'leave and do not return for the remainder of your life' now has no way to attempt to create a new account; the ID verification service would confirm they're prohibited and stop the registration process right there.

Before someone asks "how would sites collect and maintain this information", imagine if this was some kind of centralized identity database—paid for by excise taxes on services, users, or a combination of both ("the account has no charge however you pay a monthly excise tax similar to your phone bill"). Those who truly do not use online services would pay zero for a service they don't use. And if this were a centralized database, the actual identities of individuals could remain confidential while forums and online services get information in a format such as "Identity Number 234349186235097". But as that identity number points back to "Joe Q. Public, 1234 Residential St., Loonyland USA NNN01; Phone number 555-555-0191" and could be provided to someone such as law enforcement or a lawyer for a bona fide need it would have the effect of being able to identify them.

You make some good points - the centralized identity database would be a goldmine for data brokers, database thieves, hostile nations etc., hackers.

Also, what if people forget their email or it goes inactive or forget their password and can't create a new account?

Multiple accounts are a not black-and-white situation, to quote Loveshack.org's forums:

Sometimes moderators post from a personal account so that it's an opinion post and does not have the weight of moderator decisions or a moderator account behind it.

One account per person seemed logical to some in the 2000s, but as internet improved etc. and the "an IP address doesn't always prove anything" showed, it also had disadvantages, such as entire households locked out etc.

I remember a Ke$ha fan forum in the late 2000s having one-account-per-person rule and also the same thing as above with regards to moderators, then, ironically, it began being taken over by bots posting links to "nude Asian women, date Asian women" sites and essentially becoming a wasteland vBulletin forum.

[Heloin]

Although it has advantages[...]

No it doesn't. Thinking it's a good idea is an indicator someone shouldn't be trusted with a computer frankly.

[Risottia]

Are you proposing to link people's social media presence with a public record of their voting history?

*insert Putin smirk here*

[Alkmaaria]

Good. If you want to troll people and be anonymous, go to 4chan. Non-Anonymous Social Media helps businesses see who says what online with less work on the company's end. It helps the government look for potential terrorists. And honestly, you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

[Ifreann]

Good. If you want to troll people and be anonymous, go to 4chan. Non-Anonymous Social Media helps businesses see who says what online with less work on the company's end.

That sounds bad.

It helps the government look for potential terrorists.

The opposite, if anything.

And honestly, you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

Remember that you said this when you lost your job for being a fascist.

[Kandorith]

And honestly, you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

Everyone has things to hide, especially from corporations and possible data breaches.

You also have things to hide from an oppressive government for example. If you give either access to all your information you put these instances in a position where they can release information about you to do harm or indirectly cause harm.

I won't even go into how a government can get something wrong about you and as a result your life becomes a living hell through being wrongly accused of something and putting things on the right track again takes months.

Even with the most saintly people something can be found, taken out of context and used to blackmail or condemn a person.

[Synthellia]

There's clearly not a perfect answer for this question, but as someone who has an interesting view of privacy online, it'd be interesting to see if this could be pulled off.

Before anything of this sort gets implemented, I'd definitely need to see a dramatic policy shift in my government in favor of data privacy. For example, a ban on the sale and purchase of identifying/sensitive data (emails, phone numbers, tokens, other sites visited -- in essence, any PII) and significant fines if found in violation, along with frequent audits and ways to file confidential, formal complaints that would lead to investigation.

Now, all of this is still before I'd consider myself to possibly support the use of national IDs in registration services for websites, but I still feel there should be exceptions.

For example, most sites could have a "unverified" status, with limited features, but maintaining access to the site. "Verified" accounts would be a one-per-person basis, and require this national ID code.

Now, this also leads to another issue -- "What if there is a data breach and associated account names/IDs are leaked?" That's a really good point, and not one that I'm equipped to deal with, or predict the implications of. It's one of the reasons that I'd be opposed to this. I don't have a lot of actual presence to speak of, so the fear of identity theft is somewhat foreign to me.

I like the idea and reasons behind having IDs online, but in application, I don't think it's remotely possible to pull this off well.