In 1993, The New Yorker published a cartoon with the caption "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
That iconic panel has become an adage for the Internet and the anonymity it offers denizens. That same cozy cocoon of anonymity has taken a rather toxic form online, and we need to do something about it.?
Pixabay
We've come a long way since the early days of the Internet. In fact, in 2019, we're often rewarded for giving up our anonymity with convenience -- from online banking to e-commerce, and more.?
In fact, it's fair to say that verification is now the cornerstone of many online platforms -- and what you see and do online is heavily influenced by your likes and dislikes.
Over the years we've learned that allowing people to be faceless online strips them of any incentive to behave responsibly.?
When people can't be pointed out for what they say, they end up spewing some of the vilest filth. Too much anonymity is how we get people spreading hoaxes just to incite fear and hate, online harassment campaigns like Gamergate, social media trolling and bullying, and even your everyday average casual sexual harassment.
As long as you have a keyboard and a screen between you and the person you're harassing, they're automatically less human. Take the case of 8chan and the recent spate of mass shooting for instance. You'd have to be deeply mentally unseated to watch people being brutally murdered for no reason other than the colour of their skin or their choice of religion. But on 8chan, a majority of users were lauding the shooters for their act.
They treated them like heroes.
But of course, 8chan lets you be completely anonymous. Now think about how different those message threads would have been if the posters had their names and photos attached. If they could be fired from their jobs, shamed by friends and banished by their families. Those are real-life consequences for saying or doing something heinous. But behind the protective barrier of a device, you're disconnected from both the morality of your actions, as well as their consequences.?
A lack of anonymity begets a lack of safety online, especially for women and young kids. When no one on the Internet knows you're a dog, no one can talk about your bark.
Now, if you did have all your data linked online, let's be clear that every errands would be so so much easier to complete. When your finances are linked to your biometric details in a government database, you can transact anywhere without needing cash or card. When all your accounts are linked to a central profile you can access everything from your documents, to your photos, to your contacts, and even your playlists the moment you start up a new device. In fact you already have that with Apple, Google, and the like. But what if all of those linked together too? You'd never have to remember a password again.
It's the sort of unified platform that tech icons and governments have dreamed about for years. The problem is just that we haven't figured out a way to do that safely, securely and without compromising the user's interests. With a universal profile system, all it takes is a hacker or a thief gaining one point of entry, and then they have control over your entire digital life. More so if that's also linked to your government identification and banking services.
We came close with blockchain, as a way to aggregate data without centralizing it or infringing on people's personal privacy. But aside from gaining a bad rep thanks to the cryptocurrency controversy, blockchain technology just didn't have the universal appeal many hoped it would. It's why the blockchain is usually limited to buzzword-filled startup presentations to investors, and not so much services with wider user bases.
But let's think of the flip side for one second. Let's imagine a world where there's no way to hide yourself online. Your online accounts are linked to your government ID, as is being attempted right now, and everything you post online can be traced back to you. That sounds perfect to clamp down on bad behaviour online, sure. The problem is, it's also a situation ripe for a government to clamp down on dissenters.
It's the sort of situation currently ongoing in China, where people's digital accounts are hard-linked to their persona. All it takes is a government looking to silence complaints or protests, and suddenly "troublemakers" can be easily found and penalised for what they post online. That's what they're attempting to do with protesters in Hong Kong right now, using facial recognition to arrest them.?
That right there should terrify you.
Which is why there's such a fine line between maintaining privacy and keeping the peace online. You can force people to verify themselves in certain ways, but that is automatically infringing on their right to own their own data. That's especially dangerous if the keeper of that data is the government, or a big tech entity like Facebook.
Is there even a perfect solution to the anonymity vs accountability debate then? It's hard to say. The Indian government is attempting to compel social media users to link accounts to their Aadhaar IDs, which is completely the wrong method. The likes of Facebook and Twitter have been trying for years to self-police their platforms, to no avail. There's only so many people you can hire to crack down on violent, abusive, and extremist content online, and even they can't survive that kind of environment forever.
The key then might be in artificial intelligence. It's not so much verification as it is de-platforming. You don't combat the person saying vile things by pointing a finger at them. That just draws more attention to their crusade (no matter how ridiculous), and in some cases inspires them to keep fighting those "against" them.
Instead, we need algorithms we can train to pick out harmful comments and videos and the like. These can then do what human moderators do, flagging inappropriate content online, much better than any living person. And the key then is to not pull it down where they can re-upload it once more. The answer is to downgrade its visibility so non one else see it.
It's a tactic that's been demonstrated successfully before. You don't make the Internet safer and enjoyable for everyone by trying to fight toxic forces that abuse anonymity at their level. You simply take away their soap box and let things naturally die down. And hope that what stays behind is the anonymity that works for us, not against us.