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Digital IDs Needed To End 'Mob Rule' Online, Says UK's Security Minister (independent.co.uk)
Digital IDs should be brought in to end online anonymity that permits "mob rule" and lawlessness online, the security minister of United Kingdom has said. From a report: Ben Wallace said authentication used by banks could also by employed by internet firms to crack down on bullying and grooming, as he warned that people had to make a choice between "the wild west or a civilised society" online. He also took aim at the "phoniness" of Silicon Valley billionaires, and called for companies such as WhatsApp to contribute to society over the negative costs of their technology, such as end-to-end encryption. It comes after Theresa May took another step against tech giants, saying they would be ordered to clamp down on vile attacks against women on their platforms. The prime minister will target firms such as Facebook and Twitter as she makes the pitch at the G7 summit this weekend, where she will urge social media firms to treat violent misogyny with the same urgency as they do terror threats. Mr Wallace told The Times: "A lot of the bullying on social media and the grooming is because those people know you cannot identify them. It is mob rule on the internet. You shouldn't be able to hide behind anonymity."
UK's security minister needs to go bugger a diseased goat, says anyone who's not an authoritarian skumbag...
Or at least that is what the people on the top want the rest of us to believe. An authoritarian's ideal structure is one with a small number at the top and the rest of the people on the bottom. Online communication is the most profound change to society in the last few centuries, perhaps in all of human history. So of course authoritarian-leaning people want to be the gatekeepers to it.
Fear mongering would be telling you that we'll have a lawless wild west if we don't quickly transfer authority to a central entity. As if this is an either or scenario.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Every few years, someone comes out with a social thing for forum thing or whatever, and they insist that using "real" names will make people better-behaved. Every time they are proven wrong. People we well-behaved in small groups, people are not well-behaved in large groups. Full stop. There's surely a marginal size where knowing who people are will make a difference, like when you grow from 50,000 people to 100,000 people maybe, but "online" or "The Internet" are far far far beyond that region, so it doesn't matter.
This isn't just a problem in online forums. I've seen it in workplaces, a workplace with under a thousand people can feel fairly homey and interconnected and grounded, 5,000 people starts to get a little dicey but workable, but when you get up to like 25,000 people, even with the best intentions things routinely get out of control and mobs are always forming. It's not only that people fell they can get away with stuff, it's that people stop standing up for what's right. In a smaller group, when someone gets drunk at a company event and starts making an ass of themselves, unrelated people step up and usher them out. In a larger group, everyone feels like they aren't responsible for the group, so nobody steps up, and the asshole just keeps on going until something horrible happens.
Except removing anonymity is not really necessary with semi-sensible moderation, white/black lists, and content visibility policies. /. is a really good example of this. Not perfect, but browse at +2 and it's a fairly decent place. Want to dive into the madness of the AC? Change your post level settings or just click "x hidden comments".
I've got in my back pocket a couple of similar but I think better moderation schemes which include shadowbans, reputation, and friends-of-friends and foes-of-friends tweaks. Not likely that I'll ever be in a place to implement them, but if I am, I'll try them out.
Straight up/down votes with no metamoderation are the scourge of the internet. Combined with no sockpuppet policies, you end up with absolutely abusive forums. (Cough reddit, cough.) Websites on the internet are only the wild west if the owners of forums want it to be. Anyone who wants some civility can make that happen, and it doesn't require giving up anonymity.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
So Francisco Franco was a leftist?
What'd be good for you would be a little knowledge of actual history.
Your claims regarding American politics are also highly suspect. The truth of the matter is that US Democrats would be considered "moderate right" in just any other Western country, and Republicans would be considered "far right". NO viable player on the US espouses anything like an actual leftist agenda, because, to begin with, not one of them presents any serious challenge to the 1% or the corporations. When there's a party, represented by candidates on national ballots, that has the balls to espouse things like nationalisation of industry, breakup and redistribution of large estates, universal free education at all levels, and universal free health care, then you'll know that the US has finally grown a left wing.
Placing or keeping the means of production in a few favoured private hands is a hallmark of right-wing régimes.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
As someone who lives in the UK, I take a slightly different view from the somewhat rabid and over-hyped fear-mongers on this site.
Let's have some context:
The UK government is in a mess. The whole Brexit fiasco was poorly thought out and people were asked to vote on little/no information at best and outright lies at worst. This has resulted in many many views on what the result meant and massive in-fighting in the government which is spending so much time on the issue nothing else substantive seems to be happening. Couple this with an election leaving a minority party in power, with little opportunity to make any changes and you have a confused muddle.
So what to do? take decisive action? no too hard!! -- let's have a distraction: royal weddings are good for a couple of months run-up but even they pass. An attack on internet companies is always a short term winner - it panders to the worst elements of the press (who see their business model of peddling hate and discord being threatened) and hits the hot buttons of "terror" and "what of the children/women?".
The level of debate here shows the distraction technique works.
As for implementation -- just look at history: England have more chance of winning the world cup than a UK Government IT system working properly. A few consultancies and IT companies may make some money (but at least nowadays the government does try to claw back overspend on its fiascos)
I seriously doubt that anything will really change and in six months to a year's time things will be just the same.