The absurdity of this debate is highlighted in the comments section of any newspaper article on Facebook. In them, you'll find real people using their real names, happily displaying to their local community what dreadful people they really are.
Real name policies do not stop abuse. But many voters will be swayed by their basest and most authoritarian instincts, and bring themselves to support yet another example of internet salami slicing by tech-illiterate governments who know all too well themselves that this has nothing to do with ending online abuse.
And why wouldn't they? The horror stories of online abuse are very real! But the consequences of trying to bubblewrap the internet have led to a place now where here in Australia a single un-elected bureaucrat is about to be given the power to scrub whatever she pleases from the internet with no recourse to users whatsoever.
I understand of course that this is just a petition that must be given lip service, but the tech community has got to realise that this sort of nonsense is not just going to go away. "Just use Matrix/Tor/I2P/IPFS/crypto-soup-du-jour" is really not a good enough response, unless we want an internet for crypto nerds (quickly banned in Australia, under penalty of secret trial and imprisonment, of course) and a separate normie-net for Netflix and state-approved cat pictures. What to do about it (above whinging about it on HN), I have no idea.
Comments
The absurdity of this debate is highlighted in the comments section of any newspaper article on Facebook. In them, you'll find real people using their real names, happily displaying to their local community what dreadful people they really are.
Real name policies do not stop abuse. But many voters will be swayed by their basest and most authoritarian instincts, and bring themselves to support yet another example of internet salami slicing by tech-illiterate governments who know all too well themselves that this has nothing to do with ending online abuse.
And why wouldn't they? The horror stories of online abuse are very real! But the consequences of trying to bubblewrap the internet have led to a place now where here in Australia a single un-elected bureaucrat is about to be given the power to scrub whatever she pleases from the internet with no recourse to users whatsoever.
I understand of course that this is just a petition that must be given lip service, but the tech community has got to realise that this sort of nonsense is not just going to go away. "Just use Matrix/Tor/I2P/IPFS/crypto-soup-du-jour" is really not a good enough response, unless we want an internet for crypto nerds (quickly banned in Australia, under penalty of secret trial and imprisonment, of course) and a separate normie-net for Netflix and state-approved cat pictures. What to do about it (above whinging about it on HN), I have no idea.