cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/59424100
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for an end to widespread anonymity on the internet, saying users should post under their real names.
Merz is in his 70s. He is not the most gifted politician. One nickname given to him by a journalist is “the unavoidable” in reference to him having no good competition for leadership in his party after a perceived century of Angela Merkel in charge who had successfully sidelined him. For a reason, it seems.
He is very good at dropping shit like this in the media and then having it walked back or watered down. I do not see this idea getting a majority in the country where Google street view is useless because people rebelled against having the public facing side of their buildings photographed for easier navigation. And I can see a few arguments that would occupy the supreme court for a decade, were this to become law.
where Google street view is useless because people rebelled against having the public facing side of their buildings photographed for easier navigation.
Do elaborate.
Has people’s view of Street View changed since then or has the German desire for privacy evolved? My money is on the latter,
Or it’s that fish statistics analogy, newer generations don’t really feel their ancestors’ pains… but it’s too soon for that.
Germany and Autoritarianism: name a more iconic duo.
the anglosphere and settler colonialism.
it’s so ubiquitous that most people don’t even notice it.
Good point!
Boomer who doesn’t understand technology wants to go back to 1980s.
Papers! Where are your papers!?
UK: hey, could people who use VPNs please tell us who they are exactly so we know they’re not circumventing this other law? … No? Because excellent reasons? … Oh…
Merz: vee don’t like not knowing ze name of ze person who is calling us 1 Pimmel. it is vital vee know vat everybody is doing at all times on zis new sing, zis new land vee haff just discovered. because reasons.
Then don’t be 1 Pimmel, du Mikropimmel.
Ze German nation can no longer afford zis Lifestyle-Nichtpimmeling. Everybody vill need to pimmel 120 hours a week at least and until age 85 if vee vant to preserve our prosperity.
Some governments (like Russia) have deployed behaviour (i.e. not just DPI) based VPN detection which reliably kills VPN sessions, however these are wrapped. I am currently not aware of a way to circumvent this. Presumably, this will require camouflaging as a user browser session.
That’s like everybody having to wear a name tag in public. Also, chilling effect.
Fuck off Gestapo Merz
I think it’s time to cancel the internet.
The internet is dead its hollow corpse is a shitty mall and propaganda brainwashing machine.
the 90s internet was so much better. I want the 90d internet back. even if it did take a week to download a movie
The 90s internet is still here the web is just gone. Tildeverse, Gemini, BBS, Muds and IRC are still around. Its smaller but so was 90s internet but its still a lot of fun in the hidden corners of the net.
Which would be a nice idea, if it wasn’t for the fact that the second that this happens, nobody will be able to freely speak any truth at all, because governments will jump on it to restrict speech more and more and more and something tells me that fuckface McNazi knows this.
See what I did there? If I had to post under my real name, I would not have called him that.
Free speech depends on anonymity
NO.
Annonymity is what makes this all work. People forgetting that are the ones who screw it up.
In the age of AI, without verifying the identity of people there’s no way to really distinguish AI spam. A trusted user under a well-known pseudonym might work, but that requires they build up trust anonymously and as time goes on that’d be harder.
So basically, the internet is dead without this, and it’s dead with it.
A Web of Trust/friend-of-a-friend system could somewhat work. Where every person has their own personal trust scores of others, including implied trust by navigating the graph. Global trust scores are susceptible to Sybil attacks, but local ones are more resilient (still susceptible though). Hyphanet seems to have a decent WoT implementation, though the user count is so low, it hasn’t really went through a trial by fire yet.
conspiracy theory time: “AI” is a psyop designed to manufacture consent for unpopular internet regulations such as this one. We used to take anonymity and privacy for granted and now every other website demands you to “prove you are human” (my instance is unfortunately no exception… its a necessary evil).
That’s a choice communities should get to make.
I’d be fine if big tech social media would be required to use real names. That would reduce all the racism, misogyny, transphobia etc tremendously. It is obvious the big tech is not interested at all preventing any of that themselves. But let’s keep the rest of the internet out of it.
Have you been on social media? A lot of ppl acting up participating in racism, transphobia, hate speech etc. do not give a shit about protecting their identity. If the real name is not already on their profile, then their post makes them easily identifiable.
Also, there are enough laws out there that force social media providers to give out information about the users who do illegal stuff online. That would make almost everyone identifiable.
The reality is that law enforcment gives a shit about doing their job. And Social Media providers give a shit about actively protect users of those points, even tho they are obliged to in many jurisdictions.
I’m not so sure, a lot of the shit slinging (especially on Facebook) already has people’s real names attached to it. The worst of the worst are shameless anyway.
Yes but it’s just your first name.
