Poll: Internet Accountability: The Solution (Opinions Please)

[bob1052]

I feel the need to clarify two things involving the man who went to jail for "trolling" that you clearly missed.

1. What he did was far beyond trolling. Applying trolling to what he did is the same as saying if I go out and have a shoot out on the streets of my town, and people react, I'm a successful troll irl.

2. His imprisonment does not in any way relate to free speech. He was harassing the families of the deceased people with incredibly offensive attacks. He was not expressing any kind of opinion or otherwise, you cannot apply free speech to what he did.

 

[Tharwen]

The main problem I see with that is that, if someone finds out someone's identity using the ID, that person can never just remove all their information and make a new account. The person who knows their information will always be able to find them using the ID.

 

[loremazd]

People are happy with a degree of privacy, or at least a percieved control over what they reveal.

People are unhappy when privacy is taken away.

Essentially this would just make people unhappy.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

As for regular people, a quick google search would quickly reveal all the sites they have accounts on, which is horrible.

I don't think you understand. Your ID wouldn't be connected to your actual name in any way. It's just a way of seeing a bit about the person you are talking to by their conduct on the internet.

Then how would facebook work? Do you have to trust that someone named "King_Noob_Lord420XxX" is your best friend Jim, or does it also display his name? Armed with that information, you can find out all the sites Jim has an account on.

 

[viranimus]

Best case scenario it would create more problems than what it fixes. Worst case and honestly most likely scenario, it would be the death knell for the internet.

If anything we need to swing things back to the way they were. Whats been happening for far too long is too many people have far too thin of skin and for some reason take the words of someone who they will never meet in their entire lives way too personally. People need to grow some thicker skin and realize its just the the cost of unmitigated freedom, and its a damned small price to pay for freedom. Whats going to end up happening is that it will get to a point where everything is so locked up, and so politically correct that there will be no legitimate means to express any ideas because no matter what your idea may be, with almost 7 billion people on the planet, someone somewhere will find it offensive.

If it means I can say or do what I want, when I want, how I want, I would gladly suffer a million trolls slings and arrows.

What amazes me is how unbelivably short sighted some people are and how willing they are to give up freedom for some sense of comfort and saftey.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. = Ben Franklin

 

[Jimmyjames]

Then how would facebook work? Do you have to trust that someone named "King_Noob_Lord420XxX" is your best friend Jim, or does it also display his name? Armed with that information, you can find out all the sites Jim has an account on.

Obviously, social sites that require your real information wouldn't be connected. What made me think about it was this very site. Based on your profile I can find anything you posted to the forum here. How would it be different to see anything you wrote an any other forum?

 

[Jimmyjames]

Best case scenario it would create more problems than what it fixes. Worst case and honestly most likely scenario, it would be the death knell for the internet.

If anything we need to swing things back to the way they were. Whats been happening for far too long is too many people have far too thin of skin and for some reason take the words of someone who they will never meet in their entire lives way too personally. People need to grow some thicker skin and realize its just the the cost of unmitigated freedom, and its a damned small price to pay for freedom. Whats going to end up happening is that it will get to a point where everything is so locked up, and so politically correct that there will be no legitimate means to express any ideas because no matter what your idea may be, with almost 7 billion people on the planet, someone somewhere will find it offensive.

Congratulations, you've perhaps presented the best argument as to why it wouldn't work, which was the very thing I was interested in exploring.

This has been an interesting little microcosm of the internet. It's pretty amazing how vilified people are against the suggestion that the words they put up on the internet are something that they might be the least bit accountable for. It comes off as near-paranoia to me. Interesting.

 

[Last Valiance]

If some sort of good reputation system was put in place; an accurate, non-corrupt one, then it might work at least a little.

Generally it is isn't a great idea though...

 

[Jimmyjames]

I feel the need to clarify two things involving the man who went to jail for "trolling" that you clearly missed.

1. What he did was far beyond trolling. Applying trolling to what he did is the same as saying if I go out and have a shoot out on the streets of my town, and people react, I'm a successful troll irl.

2. His imprisonment does not in any way relate to free speech. He was harassing the families of the deceased people with incredibly offensive attacks. He was not expressing any kind of opinion or otherwise, you cannot apply free speech to what he did.

Thanks, I was well aware of all that. I reread what I wrote and am still at a loss as to why you think I missed that.

 

[bob1052]

I feel the need to clarify two things involving the man who went to jail for "trolling" that you clearly missed.

1. What he did was far beyond trolling. Applying trolling to what he did is the same as saying if I go out and have a shoot out on the streets of my town, and people react, I'm a successful troll irl.

2. His imprisonment does not in any way relate to free speech. He was harassing the families of the deceased people with incredibly offensive attacks. He was not expressing any kind of opinion or otherwise, you cannot apply free speech to what he did.

Thanks, I was well aware of all that. I reread what I wrote and am still at a loss as to why you think I missed that.

I was completely fascinated by the story of the man that went to jail over internet trolling. On one hand, I believe the right to free speech is hugely important and not to be taken for granted

 

[Jimmyjames]

I feel the need to clarify two things involving the man who went to jail for "trolling" that you clearly missed.

1. What he did was far beyond trolling. Applying trolling to what he did is the same as saying if I go out and have a shoot out on the streets of my town, and people react, I'm a successful troll irl.

2. His imprisonment does not in any way relate to free speech. He was harassing the families of the deceased people with incredibly offensive attacks. He was not expressing any kind of opinion or otherwise, you cannot apply free speech to what he did.

Thanks, I was well aware of all that. I reread what I wrote and am still at a loss as to why you think I missed that.

I was completely fascinated by the story of the man that went to jail over internet trolling. On one hand, I believe the right to free speech is hugely important and not to be taken for granted

OK, I clearly need to discuss in more detail what actually happened instead of writing it in the simplest terms that would apply. Guess I had egg on my face there, pal. Thanks.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Then how would facebook work? Do you have to trust that someone named "King_Noob_Lord420XxX" is your best friend Jim, or does it also display his name? Armed with that information, you can find out all the sites Jim has an account on.

Obviously, social sites that require your real information wouldn't be connected. What made me think about it was this very site. Based on your profile I can find anything you posted to the forum here. How would it be different to see anything you wrote an any other forum?

Because say, right now, I got into a fight with someone on GameFAQs. This happens frequently, as the people on there are some of the most passive aggressive people on the internet. Anyway, say this person decided to do a quick Google search, found all the sites I went on, and flamed me on them. This would make things so ridiculously easy for trolls the internet would become a total hell-hole.

And what about a famous person? If they ever, once revealed who they were, on a fan-site, whatever, they wouldn't people able to so much as make a post without getting flooded by friend-requests, hate mail, the like.

 

[Something Amyss]

Obviously, social sites that require your real information wouldn't be connected. What made me think about it was this very site. Based on your profile I can find anything you posted to the forum here. How would it be different to see anything you wrote an any other forum?

I'm not sure what's so obvious about social sites being exempt, especially since you can, you know, lie and such.

Based on my profile you can see what I posted here. You might also find any place I use the same screen name, which in my case is fairly often. What you won't find is other places where I don't want my ussername tied with, say, my Ecks Blah Live account. I personally live to insulate my real life from my online life and make precious few exceptions. Not because I'm a troll, but because I appreciate my privacy. I also spent several years as part of GBLT groups online where I did not want my friends and family to know, and to this day I don't want them finding out I don't consider myself Catholic because of their responses.

And those are just MY reasons it'd be different (And, in part answering another one of your questions of why it'd be a problem if my friends knew my unique ID). I didn't go into identity theft or the like, and so on. But being able to follow someone within one site is not the same as being able to stalk them cart blanche. What you're proposing moves us from the former to the latter, even if social sites are excluded.

 

[Gigano]

I think that it raises serious privacy concerns, but more importantly that there's no practical way of implementing it or regulating its use on a global network spanning 200+ countries and billions of websites.

...

I don't think that even ugly, reproachful speech should be criminalized. My "solution" is to frequent online communities with good moderation, and not to take anything people say online too seriously.

Some good old common sense like this, however, where responsible people take responsibility for themselves, rather than focusing on how they can annihilate all the nasty from the internet, is both much more practical and much less problematic in an ethical sense.

 

[Jazzyluv2]

ugg, this is a horrible idea, being anonymous is good. Bad mannerisms are fine, let it be.

Better than "sensible" conversation that never gets anywhere.

Id rather see a bunch of opinionated dicks talk then moderates.

Its like politics, everyone's accountable and nothing gets done.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I think the basic problem with accountability on the internet is that I'm free to simply change my persona at a moment's notice. I have very little actually invested in the name I use on this forum for example and I could, at any time, choose to become a complete dick until I was banned. Then I could create a new persona and start the cycle anew. Sure, there are attempts to curtail such things technologically, but they have not, historically at any rate, been effective.

The solution is simply a universal online identification as permanent as your meatspace one. There is no need to allow one to trace an online persona back to the meatspace counterpart of course, and indeed most would argue that for such a system to even be remotely acceptable it would need to be impossible without some sort of court order. Because my persona is no longer readily exchanged for a new one, it would suddenly hold greater value.

Basically, my theory works on the assumption that it is not anonymity that causes douchebaggery on the internet but the fact that any particular persona has no real value to the user and thus they have no innate need to maintain a given image of said persona.

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

It just wouldn't work out too well overall. If people would cooperate, then it'd be fine. But we'd also miss out on some of our best and brightest trolls, few though there are.

 

[Jimmyjames]

-snip-

I completely agree- Thats actually pretty much what I was trying to suggest. I don't think I was very clear, perhaps I should have explained better.

 

[clubdrift123]

Ok Korea...