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UK Government Report Recommends Ending Online Anonymity
An anonymous reader writes with a bit of pith from TechDirt: Every so often, people who don't really understand the importance of anonymity or how it enables free speech (especially among marginalized people), think they have a brilliant idea: "just end real anonymity online." They don't seem to understand just how shortsighted such an idea is. It's one that stems from the privilege of being in power. And who knows that particular privilege better than members of the House of Lords in the UK — a group that is more or less defined by excess privilege? The Communications Committee of the House of Lords has now issued a report concerning "social media and criminal offenses" in which they basically recommend scrapping anonymity online.
Maybe they forgot that the Internet has no borders?
All Brits officially change there name to anonymous coward. Problem solved.
If government wants to have peeps into our private lives, I say they should offer themselves up first. Have every government employee's financial records, emails, purchases, and other records completely public. Install GPS trackers on them so we can all track their movement. Put cameras in their homes, cars, and offices so that we can watch them 24/7.
If they want the panopticon, let them go first.
Universities and others that make hate speech a crime are violating the principle of free speech.
If you read the proposal by the House of Lords, it's completely infeasible. What they want is for websites to have verified identity information on hand, but then allow people to post anonymously or using a pseudonym. This is infeasible for several reasons, mostly that to truly verify someone's identity, you need a government-issued ID number. I'm not British, but in the US, that would be the Social Security Number. Now, let me tell you what happens when a government forces SSN identification for things that should not need an SSN.
Some time ago, there was an insanely popular MMORPG in South Korea known as Lineage 2. The administrators behind Lineage 2 (I believe the game was owned by Microsoft but I can't say for sure) required that anyone registering a Lineage 2 account (which required a monthly fee) give them their Korean Social Security Number (KSSN) which works exactly like the US SSN does. I don't recall whether this was because the Korean government was scared of anonymity and demanded it, or because the game's owners wanted it for verification and were not required to get KSSNs by the government, but in any case, a KSSN was required to play the game.
A few years later, Lineage 2 got hacked. The database of KSSNs they had was leaked, meaning that the identities of thousands of people were freely available on the internet. After the Korean government learned of the Lineage 2 hack, they actually tightened their restrictions - all MMORPGs operating in Korea were now required to ask for a KSSN upon account registration, even for F2P games.
The result is that any time an MMORPG gets hacked in Korea, KSSNs get dumped. It also led to things like mass identity theft - players from outside Korea who wanted to play the Korean version of various MMOs (the ones based in Korea are usually regularly updated in Korean but not in the International versions) would have to find a leaked KSSN and use it.
Requiring an identity verification for anything but the most major financial transactions (insurance, banks, employment) should never happen. A credit card verification is different - you can verify a credit or debit card without needing an SSN - and should be enough for pretty much everywhere.
Every so often, people who don't really understand the importance of anonymity or how it enables free speech (especially among marginalized people), think they have a brilliant idea: "just end real anonymity online."
I disagree. These people understand perfectly well the importance of anonymity. Which is precisely why they want it banned.
At a local pizza shop. I placed my order
and paid cash. She asked:
Q: May I have your name sir?
A: Yes
After a while I hear on the speaker.
"Yes, your pizza is ready".
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
After many clicks, I came finally to the real report and the section on Anonymity.
http://www.publications.parlia...
and the bold part is here,
From our perspective in the United Kingdom, if the behaviour which is currently criminal is to remain criminal and also capable of prosecution, we consider that it would be proportionate to require the operators of websites first to establish the identity of people opening accounts but that it is also proportionate to allow people thereafter to use websites using pseudonyms or anonymously. There is little point in criminalising certain behaviour and at the same time legitimately making that same behaviour impossible to detect. We recognise that this is a difficult question, especially as it relates to jurisdiction and enforcement.
So it seems they are not complete idiots, just trying to make things easier for investigative purposes. How they want people to identify themselves, well, that's another story.
Your truly,
A.C.
CAPTCHA: thanks
The House of Lords is a vestige political body with only powers to delay legislation, but because it is unelected (as of yet), it actually serves a very useful function in British politics.
Montesquieu, whose political theories heavily influenced America's founding fathers (especially regarding the balances of powers in government, which he greatly admired in the British government at the time), also supported hereditary aristocracy. In any case, most of the House of Lords are not longer hereditary peers, as life peers are now the norm.
The reason an aristocracy is *sometimes* desirable in government is that they do not have to answer to the whims of the masses as they are not elected. The political fervour that is whipped up in the populace, from security theatre / war on terror, the war on drugs, etc, takes a life of its own in a pure democracy. The idea is that you with an aristocracy, the actors can take a long term view and can judge and react independent of popular sentiment.
The British parliamentary system actually contains elements of three different types of government - Monarchy (constitutional, providing the head of state which is apolitical), aristocracy (the House of Lords comprises of hereditary peers and also life peers appointed for certain accomplishments), and democracy (the House of Commons). The House of Commons, as the constitution currently stands, holds all of the cards, but the House of Lords (and to a lesser extent, the Crown) also serves to temper the populist nature of the politics in the House of Commons.
As the government is formed by the biggest party in the Commons, the executive is formed by the biggest party in the legislature, it is no surprise that the British system is more productive politically - it rarely ends in gridlock like the US government. If it does (the government losing confidence of the Parliament), then new elections are called to end the gridlock. Arguably, if America adopted this system, it would be a huge step forward. This also points to a major advantage of a system with a unwritten constitution - the political system can gradually evolve, whereas in countries with written constitutions (such as the US), it is much more difficult for better or for worse.
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The political fervour that is whipped up in the populace, from security theatre / war on terror, the war on drugs, etc, takes a life of its own in a pure democracy.
Who whips up that fervor, the war on drugs wasn't started as a grass roots campaign, for sure, it came from the top. It's the same in the US and UK, I think, certainly with the same dark motivations and same ill-gotten power. Anonymity is a friend to the masses and an enemy to power. Whistle-blowers, leakers and disharmonious speech are threats to the status quo, the same one that provides the wealth they wield to have this alleged long-term view.
I don't disagree with the concept of having a ruling body that is not beholden to the mob, I just haven't seen any mechanism by which that body can be kept honest and magnanimous. That is the same spirit which brought down monarchies to begin with.
I'm certainly too ignorant to decide in what ways the UK system or the US system are better or worse, but in this particular example I do not see any significant difference.
Meeting held under this rule do not allow the the disclosure of who said what. The "what" can be reported, but no-one is permitted to say who said it. That permits people to express views, or ask "what if" questions (and get considered, informed answers) without having to always play to the (media) audience and make guarded, ambiguous and watered-down statements.
Since the government recognises the value of these sorts of meetings (as well as the established protocol of "off the record" briefings, which cannot be quoted) it's ludicrous that they would think that removing anonymity would be a good idea. This can only be one of those "silly season" media reports, usually made up by journalists who are bored as politicians are away during the summer months.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
So who is whipping up the fevour? More likely than not it is people with money and connections.
Democracy allows government to be directed by the mob. Who controls the mob controls the government. That's the whole problem with campaign finance and lobbying in the US. In such a system, the politicians in government are only puppets servings moneyed interests. These are the people funneling money into lobbying and the political machine (e.g. Koch brothers) or controls the press (think Murdoch and Fox news).
It is blindingly obvious that it is not the people in government that calls the shots, it's the people that have the money to get the people in government.
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For speech to result in physical attacks - a strong causal connection - that's no longer hate speech, that's "incitement to riot". We've had no problem keeping "hate speech" legal but "incitement to riot" illegal in America for centuries now.
Speech should always be protected as speech. But telling your bodyguard to shoot someone is not illegal because of the words you use, but instead because of the immediate desired outcome of that speech. Running on a platform of killing all the Jews is political speech, and should be protected (and for goodness sake, please oh please let the candidate actually say that sort of thing on camera, not keep it as a secret agenda, so that democracy can happen properly there). Saying "hey, lets go attack that guy right there, right now!" has never been protected speech.
"On a computer" changes nothing.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.