this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
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So, I'm going to offer a dissenting opinion. Please hear me out before piling on.
The anonymous internet is going to kill the internet. Without verification and attachment back to a real human, eventually the internet will just be flooded with bots, misinformation, and unverifiable information. The dead internet theory.
So, yes, we all worry about "Chinese style social credit scores" or corporate ownership of ID or whatever other dystopian bullshit... But what if you just want to have a site where people can talk to one another and know that they're people that actually have to take responsibility for what they say.
Anyway, I suspect that this will start in isolation. Like when the internet was young and communities were forming with knots of small people... Forums with full verification requirements or similar. Then they will grow once their quality exceeds everything else.
Discuss!
A lot of the bad stuff that happens on the internet is directly related to perceived anonymity. If you want to bully, harass, make bigoted statements, disseminate propaganda, or shill for a corporation, it's better to be anonymous. If a country gives its citizens the right to free speech and reasonable protections for privacy, a non-anonymous internet is better. Besides, anonymity on the internet is an illusion for about 99% of internet users. All of the big social media companies know who you are - their whole business depends on the data they collect on you, and that data is worth much less if it can't be associated with an individual. They also have heavy incentives to share that information with the government. Try making an 'anonymous' threat against your country's leader and see if any law-enforcement types decide to visit you.