I like proposition A, but proposition B is not good. Real names policies mean people who are at risk of violence or job loss (e.g. domestic abuse, transgender, religious and ethnic minorities, poor people) must either conform or risk themselves for having a political voice. Given official news and political parties lie constantly about state affairs, real names don't even help with trustworthiness! Look at the President.
Instead, I would advocate that you should read everything critically and that any news you accept must meet some evidence threshold and logically make sense in a coherent narrative. Learning real history helps.
I strongly suspect that we were lied to about the rationale for real names policies on Google, FB, etc. They wanted data for their advertising business and to help enforce political conformity (their businesses benefit from a politically stable base of operations). It clearly didn't help suppress hate speech or insane conspiracy theories.
Well, there are a variety of good reasons why real-name policies aren't always the best idea. The "authentic real self" approach works okay if you've got the social and political capital to weather any negative consequences of your statements being directly associated with your real identity, but that's not true for many/most(?) participants in our democracy. For example:
* a queer youth in a deeply conservative area takes their life in their hands by being authentic w.r.t their sexuality
* a conservative employee of a liberal company risks their livelihood by expressing beliefs espoused by a mainstream political party
* a feminist activist is stalked by creeps who disagree with their legitimate speech and have their dox at hand thanks to the real-name policy
You don't need to reach very far to find plenty of specific instances of the above issues. Furthermore, that's limiting the conversation to the American political arena. The issue is immeasurably more severe in areas of the world where political violence is a fact of daily life. One commonality is that the chilling effect is strongest among marginalized groups - real-name policies wind up as tools for majoritarian oppression, as the opinions that are most safe to voice are the ones that are the least controversial. This is just a small sample of topics in this fairly well-researched space; check out[1][2] for a lot more depth.
I guess what I'm getting at is that a real-name policy would work great if negative consequences only accrued to genuine bad-faith actors like bots and propagandists. Sadly, that's not the case - completely civil, legitimate speech is chilled by the threat of physical violence, social crucifixion and financial disaster enabled by gratuitous real-name policies.
On top of that, it's not like real-name policies are some kind of panacea for the problems you mention. Facebook aggressively enforces theirs, and they were hardly immune to the problems Twitter has dealt with in/since the 2016 election. If your concern is more around people saying stupid shit "around movies and political events" - again, take a look at Facebook. Your great-uncle Larry doesn't care that everyone knows he thinks Obama was born in Kenya.
This is why I'm more keen on alternative solutions, like the identity-vouching providers discussed up-thread. Instead of a real name acting as a proxy for legitimate interest in participating in a given conversation, use a trusted third party to establish that a given account really is, say, a voting American citizen with service-specific hash s (to avoid sockpuppeting) and not some guy in a basement in SPT. That way, you get some of the hypothetical benefits of a real-name policy w.r.t cutting down on abuse while maintaining the freedom of expression afforded by pseudonyms.
Sorry, but the idea that real name policies are all about improving discourse is nothing but a load of self serving bullshit from the companies that push it. They (and their advertisers) stand to benefit massively the easier people are identified and profiled.
Personally I see real name policies as a 'simple, easy, and wrong' solution to a complex problem. It was relatively reasonable thing to try, it seemed like it is a straightforward way to get people to behave. But in practice people quadruple-down and toxicity becomes a part of their identity instead of blowing off steam or a side hobby, and openly changing their mind means losing face.
I try to point out that real names policies only affect
1.) People who aren't using a fake but real-sounding name
2.) People who say something that someone else doesn't like (this can be everyone from a future employer who found something not very PC to jihadis who want to kill you)
3.) People who are smart enough to understand the above (I see grown up people shouting about how certain countries should be nuked, yes. signed Full Name, Teacher at such and such childrens school)
The idea behind a real name policy is that you open yourself up for scrutiny and criticism. Since you can be held accountable for what you say you have an incentive to say the truth or at least avoid making mistakes. The reality is that on the internet thousands of people will criticize you for any arbitrary reason even if that reason is actually a fabricated lie or just a personal bias.
Personally as I said before I do not advocate real name policies, but I am for fixing such problems if possible. For example, the illusion that people are perfect is obsolete in this day and age.
Would you have used your real name if you were gay in 1950?
The internet is not where politics are decided, but at the very least that’s where a good part of the debate happens. Use real names and you’ll be able to blackmail people into approving things they disapprove. What about publishing everyone’s votes, while you’re at it? No, people need a safe space to experiment debating about good and bad ideas without risk.
Real name policies are only about the ability to blackmail and coerce.
I think those proposing a "Real Name" policy seem to be confused that having such a policy confers trust. Similarly, being anonymous does not automatically mean trolls everywhere. The fact is that even for sites with no RealName(tm) policy today, most of them have a ratio where normal conversation greatly outweighs trolls. So for the most part, the current model works.
I think we need to disassociate name => trust as a start and really start exploring how to cultivate a culture of expression without trying to force the whole name thing as a solution.
As a small example, given the recent storm around Airbnb and "EJ", can anyone (including Randi Zuckerberg) really advocate that EJ absolutely had to be using a real name in order to gain credibility?
I think there's a chance that there's some amount of intrinsic tension here; i.e. that if you want to hold people to account for spreading lies; then you'll be similarly enabling dunking on minorities. But dis+misinformation are so problematic that I don't think we should immediately disregard an idea merely because it has some potential collateral damage - especially if a pragmatic approach might exist that at least tries to minimize that collateral damage.
However, while accountability might have worked 50 years ago it sure looks like it wouldn't anymore - it's not as if people, including prominent people actually go to the effort to hide their identity before spouting nonsense - some of it fairly vile, some of it so idiotic it surely would have caused reputational harm a few decades ago.
Real names won't work where there's no sense of shared reproach; no sense by the speaker that their friends will be disappointed or even outraged. Worse, they revel in it; being crazy is a point of pride; as is harassing others (made even easier should a real-name policy be adopted).
So whether or not anonymity for the oppressed is worthy enough aim to accept also supporting yet more disinformation campaigns is probably a moot point; real names will no longer discourage extremists from spreading their special brand of insanity.
Real name policies hurt the most vulnerable people the most, and essentially cut off people who can't afford for whatever reason to tie their self-expression on the internet to a name through which or bullies or other abusive personalities can trace their real-life identity. As far as I can tell, they do nothing to curb harassment by people who are secure in spouting abuse because it is considered acceptable in their social environment.
The only reason using real names affects behavior is because people fear retaliation, so the policy suppresses behavior likely to offend people and groups with the known will and ability to retaliate. This, to the powerful, is equivalent to improving behavior.
edit: what's the alternate proposed mechanism? There's no magic in a name other than a method to track people and hold them responsible.
I don't understand why people make anything of "real names" policies. They just want the users to have real looking names. They don't actually have any way to force real names. So it's a non-issue.
There's no oppressed person in a police state signing up for Facebook that reads a EULA and concludes "well, Facebook said I have to reveal my true identity, I guess that's the way it is."
I'm always amazed by the lack of historical perspective that "real name" policies entail. Like, holy shit, how many historical people used pseudonyms well before the internet because impactful speech can be a very dangerous thing to the speaker. And yes I know you can be anonymous on Quora, but that's only useful if you trust that no government entities can lean on Quora for information. (HINT: shouldn't trust that).
Just let people run with the identities they choose. There's nothing special about a name.
I don't think they're designed to dissuade people from deliberately using fake names.
They're designed to encourage people who causally use pseudonyms just for the fun of it to use their real name instead. The reason for that is just to have a better identification key to use when selling access to your data to advertisers.
To put it bluntly, most these companies probably don't have any reason care if that process also makes their service a PITA for people who don't have names like Bob Smith. With very high probability, those people don't live in countries their customers are trying to target with ads.
I just really can't buy that real name policies are meant to dissuade abuse. Not when you've got so many cases like Milo Yiannopulos being allowed to get away with chasing women all around the Internet under his real name, in accordance with real name policies, for such a long time.
Instead, I would advocate that you should read everything critically and that any news you accept must meet some evidence threshold and logically make sense in a coherent narrative. Learning real history helps.
I strongly suspect that we were lied to about the rationale for real names policies on Google, FB, etc. They wanted data for their advertising business and to help enforce political conformity (their businesses benefit from a politically stable base of operations). It clearly didn't help suppress hate speech or insane conspiracy theories.
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