UK Home Secretary wants to ban anonymous social media accounts, is determined to bring "big changes"

[jagdtigger]

Just now, Spindel said:

One of the most important rules of early internet:

"Never use your real name or any information that can be connected to you as a person or where you live"

I think thats also true for the current internet as well. Politicians have one common fault, they only see the tip of the iceberg and ignore whats under visible level:

[Spindel]

11 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

I think thats also true for the current internet as well. Politicians have one common fault, they only see the tip of the iceberg and ignore whats under visible level:

It's not politicians, what you say above is true for most people, even people on tech forums like this. 

 

I'm from sweden and I started to see this rule being broken more and more with the advent of lunarstorm.se that launched in 2000 (well in reality it changed name in 2000 but the site had existed since 1996 but it was in the same time as the name change that the site really took off).

 

Suddenly people (mostly teen girls, but the teen guys (and probably creepy 40 year olds) soon followed) started to create accounts with their real names and some times their real home addresses accompanied by pictures of them and their friends. That site was, in sweden, what Facebook became before Facebook existed.

 

Internationally this rule started to be broken for real with Facebook.    

 

 

EDIT:// Here's a Wikipedia link about Lunarstorm for any non swedes that are curious about what it was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LunarStorm

[LAwLz]

12 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

it's not about the fact that they're so big as single entities. it's about the amount of social media content generated overall. Youtube for example if it was paying at $15 an hour would need to spend a half a billion dollars per year just on people watching video's, (never mind everything they would need to pay in equipment and other people supporting that).

 

Social media generates many times as much content as youtube does. Reviewing even a tiny percentage of all social media posts would cost 10's of billions of US dollars, maybe more. Nobody can afford to do that, the services would all have to become subscription based, (or more likely just close), if that happened.

I think your calculations are off.

 

30,000 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube, per hour.

If Youtube were to pay people even 2 dollar per hour of content watched, they would have to pay 60,000 dollars every hour.

 

60000 * 8760 (number of hours in a year) = 525,600,000

 

It would be half a billion dollars if they paid people 2 dollar per hour, let along 15 dollars an hour.

 

At 15 dollars an hour, Youtube would have to spend almost 4 billion dollars a year just on moderation staff. 

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think your calculations are off.

 

30,000 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube, per hour.

If Youtube were to pay people even 2 dollar per hour of content watched, they would have to pay 60,000 dollars every hour.

 

60000 * 8760 (number of hours in a year) = 525,600,000

 

It would be half a billion dollars if they paid people 2 dollar per hour, let along 15 dollars an hour.

 

At 15 dollars an hour, Youtube would have to spend almost 4 billion dollars a year just on moderation staff. 

Yup, and that number keeps growing (hours uploaded per hour). Tack on the needed management, upper management, middle management, HR, training, benefits, taxes, payroll staff, etc. and that number goes WAY WAY up and that's assuming all the staff is 100% remote and no buildings are needed for any of this. Then you have to account for general turnover of staff, promotions, etc. and you're probably looking at easily a 50 to 100 billion/year number.

[Gamer Schnitzel]

If what they are trying to do is get rid of "bullying" then they should just ban social media instead which is at the core of nearly every mental health problem currently.

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

If what they are trying to do is get rid of "bullying" then they should just ban social media instead which is at the core of nearly every mental health problem currently.

I got bullied in school even back when smart phones and social media did not exist. So no, it would not solve anything. Outcasting bullies would be a good start, like Horizon Zero Dawn style.

[CarlBar]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I think your calculations are off.

 

30,000 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube, per hour.

If Youtube were to pay people even 2 dollar per hour of content watched, they would have to pay 60,000 dollars every hour.

 

60000 * 8760 (number of hours in a year) = 525,600,000

 

It would be half a billion dollars if they paid people 2 dollar per hour, let along 15 dollars an hour.

 

At 15 dollars an hour, Youtube would have to spend almost 4 billion dollars a year just on moderation staff. 

 

Looks like you found a different source on the amount of video. i found 60 hours per minute or 3600 hours per hour., (i was about to head out so was being quick). You've got a value roughly 8 times that, which means as you said about 4 billion dollars.

[Master Disaster]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I think your calculations are off.

 

30,000 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube, per hour.

If Youtube were to pay people even 2 dollar per hour of content watched, they would have to pay 60,000 dollars every hour.

 

60000 * 8760 (number of hours in a year) = 525,600,000

 

It would be half a billion dollars if they paid people 2 dollar per hour, let along 15 dollars an hour.

 

At 15 dollars an hour, Youtube would have to spend almost 4 billion dollars a year just on moderation staff. 

 

4 hours ago, Lurick said:

Yup, and that number keeps growing (hours uploaded per hour). Tack on the needed management, upper management, middle management, HR, training, benefits, taxes, payroll staff, etc. and that number goes WAY WAY up and that's assuming all the staff is 100% remote and no buildings are needed for any of this. Then you have to account for general turnover of staff, promotions, etc. and you're probably looking at easily a 50 to 100 billion/year number.

 

2 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

Looks like you found a different source on the amount of video. i found 60 hours per minute or 3600 hours per hour., (i was about to head out so was being quick). You've got a value roughly 8 times that, which means as you said about 4 billion dollars.

Absolutely agree, it is impossible to police. However I didn't suggest they should be doing that, only that they're forced to take on more employees and that they ensure all reports of this nature are reviewed by a human.

 

Relying on user reports is the only option, the problem is that most reports never go near a human.

[StDragon]

16 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

I am only going to point this out. This is not an easily regulatable thing, especially with today's political medium, level of ignorance of said medium and so on so forth.

It is a Pandora's box.  Tread very carefully my friend.

The only good way to do this is to create rules/laws that can protect the receiver. A crime of feelings is not a crime of action. Speaking your mind is one thing but making threats, plausible ones, is another.

In other words, there is no right to not be offended.
 

[Ydfhlx]

On 10/17/2021 at 9:05 PM, Master Disaster said:

I'll deliberately not post the politics and stick to the relevant facts only.

But then you go to present your political opinion:

 

On 10/17/2021 at 9:05 PM, Master Disaster said:

Honestly, I'm not totally against this. I actually agree that far too many people use the anonymous nature of the internet to say disgusting things knowing there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Since we do politics, I should say that the point of this is to gain knowledge of who does what (this is the point). But do you really want the government to know what everybody does at what time? I don't. And it's not just concern, I am fairly certain government will use this information in an (un)intended way, either to spy on all people or to deal with political opponents.

[Video Beagle]

10 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Her statement says otherwise.....

Why assume she doesn't know what she's talking about as opposed to saying things geared to get specific responses from specific audiences?

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

18 hours ago, LAwLz said:

/sarcasm

 

[Kisai]

On 10/17/2021 at 12:05 PM, Master Disaster said:

 

 

Honestly, I'm not totally against this. I actually agree that far too many people use the anonymous nature of the internet to say disgusting things knowing there's nothing anyone can do about it.

 

 

Here's the problem in a nutshell:

- Anonymity does not prevent people from being garbage humans. See Facebook, where real name policy is the rule.

- Anonymity is more likely to have people act without restraint, See *chan, *cows, SA, Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr, etc

 

People who post on specific social media, forums, etc post there because that site curates that crowd. LTT attracts techies, but we don't all agree on political views, and some people here make blind assumptions that everyone is on one side of the political spectrum or the other. Despite that, the moderators have taken more of "play nice or I take away the toys" approach.

 

The bigger the site though, the more difficult it is to moderate. *chan sites, *cow sites are completely unmoderated, and they bait their targets, out in the open. If you know the character of these sites, no sane person would post on them, and no smart person would touch those sites without a VPN. You're literately shoulder-to-shoulder with people who can't tell fact from fiction, and post their psychopathic plans to hurt people out in the open, and because people don't know if they're joking or not, everything is considered a joke, until someone acts on it, and then they quickly hide/delete the thread. So Psychopaths and Sociopaths find these sites entertaining.

 

Meanwhile.

 

Twitter, Tumblr, which are also anonymous, curate a largely "influencer" audience, which means it attracts narcissists. When someone starts making "joke" threats, the moderation kicks in and bans/blocks/mutes things.

 

Facebook on the other hand, plays this game from the other side, their entire business is about "knowing" who you are, and this can only lead to two outcomes: pre-crime or "chinese social credit"-like systems. A privately operated "law enforcement" can be nothing but bad news. You are not the customer, you are the product.

 

SA and Reddit exist in a weird middle-ground, where the sites on the whole attract the same audience as *chan sites, but are heavily curated for revenue purposes, so if you get kicked off these sites "you're too much of a brand risk, take your *chan content and leave"

 

 

So what is the right path? Honestly, I'd rather have anonymity.  Unless you are making money from the site, the site has no reason to know your real name, and you are a fool to ever give any site your real name, even if their ToS forbid fictional names. Especially when it comes to news sites (which should be curated.) CBC in Canada, closes their comment sections on news posts after only a few hours, and has a real name policy, you can tell that most of the names are fictitious anyway. That should be the "standard". Automatically lock threads that a human moderator has not actively participated in after 1 day. There is no means of knowing if a name is real unless a name literately is a palindrome or anagram of something obvious.

 

When it comes to social media, do the same. Restrict replies to public posts after 24 hours to only the mutual followers, and once the thread creator hasn't weighed in for a day, close it. Businesses and Individuals can change the defaults, but the default should be to prevent being dog-piled/mobbed by other influencers who are unrelated, and may have unintentionally directed their fans to harass someone. 

 

 

[Delicieuxz]

No anonymous accounts would result in a dramatic loss of people willing to whistleblow, leak information that exposes corruption and wrongdoings, give honest opinions on sensitive topics, and would result in reduced accountability among the most powerful, fewer critical dissenting viewpoints, for fear of retribution, probably resulting in a society that would be even much more slave to groupthink and granfalloons than the one we already have.

[jagdtigger]

13 hours ago, Video Beagle said:

Why assume she doesn't know what she's talking about

Im not assuming anything, her lack of knowledge is pretty evident from what she said.

[Tenelia]

I think from the observations of pilot projects in some schools over here in Asia, the results have been a lot better. Conversations are much more thoughtful and long-form. I've found a lot more meaning in reading online discussions. Much less personal attacks or anger-induced debates. That said...

 

Did anonymous accounts disappear? No. Did whistleblowers disappear? Nah. If anything, it consolidated a lot of voter attention on the official channels to get better, especially with all the workforce exploitations during covid. I think most countries in Europe will also see a larger social benefit, but I'm not too sure how that'd benefit USA given the corporate lobbying capture.

[Mark Kaine]

On 10/19/2021 at 10:30 AM, Delicieuxz said:

No anonymous accounts would result in a dramatic loss of people willing to whistleblow, leak information that exposes corruption and wrongdoings, give honest opinions on sensitive topics, and would result in reduced accountability among the most powerful, fewer critical dissenting viewpoints, for fear of retribution, probably resulting in a society that would be even much more slave to groupthink and granfalloons than the one we already have.

While its true, this is a two sided sword, and i have doubts our politicians are even remotely capable of doing this right, but the idea is a necessity at this point. 

Also i did some research or rather observations, many countries already have such regulations, and it didn't completely destroy anything, for example-- where i actually learned about this... a south Tyrolean news site... people are required to give their personal data at registration-- after the initial "shock" as toxic as ever... it would seem like, maybe just some phrases changed... (I'm not sure if this is a specific law for "alto adige" only or whole italy)

 

Also china... they just talk differently... and I'm very surprised how open and "provocative" it can get, but always in a "smart" way, not too directly,  they'll just talk about fish and the sea, and the "uncle" or "bear" (lol)... but in context,  its usually very clear what they're talking about and it usually does remain civil (unlike in some western "communities") which is obviously a plus, way less trolling,  and even then, its less provoking/ offensive (generally speaking)

 

Also... the internet is already not "anonymous"... ip addresses are a thing, vpn doesn't help either,  its just that the regulations are often wishy-washy and poorly thought out... and not enforced.

 

9 hours ago, Tenelia said:

I think from the observations of pilot projects in some schools over here in Asia, the results have been a lot better. Conversations are much more thoughtful and long-form. I've found a lot more meaning in reading online discussions. Much less personal attacks or anger-induced debates. That said...

 

Did anonymous accounts disappear? No. Did whistleblowers disappear? Nah. If anything, it consolidated a lot of voter attention on the official channels to get better, especially with all the workforce exploitations during covid. I think most countries in Europe will also see a larger social benefit, but I'm not too sure how that'd benefit USA given the corporate lobbying capture.

Sadly the west isn't asia, it'll be a lot more difficult here , also due to poor education and general understanding,  plus lobbying,  as you said.

 

 

 

 

[Bitter]

All fine and dandy until someone gets doxxed/leaked/hacked and murdered.

[StDragon]

On 10/18/2021 at 10:38 PM, Kisai said:

So what is the right path? Honestly, I'd rather have anonymity.

Me too. People shouldn't fear reprisal for speaking their mind. In addition, it cultivates a mindset to question everything on the internet and not blindly believe everything you read.

That said, the power of anonymity does turn people into dicks. By now I would hope people have thick skin over it.

 

[LAwLz]

4 minutes ago, StDragon said:

That said, the power of anonymity does turn people into dicks. By now I would hope people have thick skin over it.

I don't even think this is true. It's often repeated over and over again, but judging by how people act on sites like Facebook even with their real names attached to their posts makes me question the entire premise. Maybe the formula isn't:

Normal person + Anonymity + Audience = Fuckwad

 

Maybe the formula is just:

Fuckwad + Anonymity + Audience = fuckward

and maybe this formula is true as well:

Normal person + Anonymity + Audience = Normal person

 

 

Or maybe anonymity reveals the true nature of some people, which they hide when they aren't anonymous. If that's the case, then removing the anonymity doesn't actually solve the issue. It just brushes over it.

 

Even if it is true that anonymity causes some people to become fuckwads, we also have to weight that against the positive effects anonymity has.

[jagdtigger]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Or maybe anonymity reveals the true nature of some people, which they hide when they aren't anonymous.

Its kinda similar to power in this respect, give someone a bit of power and it will show their true nature....

[StDragon]

47 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Or maybe anonymity reveals the true nature of some people, which they hide when they aren't anonymous. If that's the case, then removing the anonymity doesn't actually solve the issue. It just brushes over it.

It's this.

 

There's no point in solving the problem insomuch as learning to live with the natural negative side-effect of human behavior. The positives of anonymity outweigh the negatives in totality.

[1518]

On 10/17/2021 at 8:05 PM, Master Disaster said:

First off, this topic is very close to the line. Please don't make this a political debate, I'll deliberately not post the politics and stick to the relevant facts only.

 

In the wake of the stabbing of a UK MP by a radicalised UK national, home secretary Priti Patel has just said that she intends to outlaw the anonymity of social media accounts in the UK though how she intends to pull this off is anyones guess.

 

Source - https://www.entrepreneurnews.co.uk/facebook/david-amess-priti-patel-could-ban-online-anonymity-to-stop-relentless-abuse-of-mps/

 

Honestly, I'm not totally against this. I actually agree that far too many people use the anonymous nature of the internet to say disgusting things knowing there's nothing anyone can do about it.

 

Where I am concerned though is how they intend to pull this off and how long will it be before the powers designed to stop online abuse are applied to other things. AFAIK if the UK (or indeed any) police get in touch with a social media platform and ask for someones info they get it, how much further are they going to go? A forced register that everyone who wants to participate has to sign? Government issue online passes?

 

I have this horrible feeling they're going to use this tragedy to try and take control of the "free" internet.

They are now delaying it 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58998635

[1518]

On 10/17/2021 at 8:09 PM, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Yea while there are noble intentions... I can see this being circumvented simply by moving to the dark web... which is where many of these organized crime/terrorist organizations have presence in anyways. 

 

The dangers of anonymous accounts does need to be addressed because they involve not just terrorism. But bullying, luring, etc. But I don't think anyone has even a clue on how to effectively tackle that without just gunning every single one of them down. 

Its also a problem for the SIS (Special Intelligence Service) on one hand you should stop terrorists but then you could comprise other people privacy. And also we dont know how many terrorist plots get stopped only the ones that get through we hear about like in the past four years the MI5 stopped 31 late-stage terror plots (within the UK and the ones they speak about.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58512901 

[kaylexmorgana]

This reminds me of this hilarious UK/EU meme with patrick from spongebob "making fun" of americans. Doubt i should post it here.