Off Topic Thread 4.0

Should the internet continue to be an anonymous playground?

I generally watch or listen to the joe podcast with Barry and Andrew and sometimes tune into the English one with Haskell.

The recent episode of the English podcast had Haskell, Payne and Sean O'Brien talking about internet abuse and I found myself agreeing with some but not all of what they were saying around how people act online versus how they would act in person.

I've been an internet user since the early 90s so pretty much since it's infancy in Ireland. I remember the days of bulletin boards, when email gradually became a medium and then when the world went from dial up to ISDN to broadband.

In that time the internet has gone from somewhere for tech people to hang out and share ideas to a world wide forum. It was the mecca of online / PC gaming for much of the decade from 95 - 2005 but ultimately in the last 25 years it has gone completely mainstream.

As an early internet user I always valued my anonymity online. As someone now approaching my midlife I'm starting to feel differently. This is more or less the only place I post comments, I've made no attempt to hide my identity on here and don't feel the need to on this forum (I don't post on boards.ie outside of rugby).

I do however read other social media sites, reddit for example and occasionally I read posted content on facebook. I don't get into debates online outside of rugby because I've seen over the last 10 years that it's become completely disingenuous and a total waste of time.

I do however see immense levels of misinformation, abuse and bullying. It's so common now and the recent election build up was a new low in terms of the standard of discourse. In gaming communities similarly I can't get over the way people speak to each other. I generally play amongst a group of similarly aged people and it's a mature enough environment, but my god almost any game and any server and the abuse is free flowing.

So I've gotten to the point now where I think I'd rather peoples identities were attached to their remarks. Be it on forums, comments sections or social media. I think the longer things go on as they are the more that negativity is going to spill into every day discourse.

What do others think?

Squidgy Black wrote: »

I can see where they're coming from, and there's definitely a section of society that sees the internet as a place they can hide their true identity and do whatever they want with no consequences to their actual life, be it sending death threats, bullying people etc.

However, there's the issue of personal data management. It's fine to say verify them, make them stick their passport in etc so they're held accountable, but the governance around companies and how they use/store your user data, and the security around that data just isn't there. We don't want the internet to become a totalitarian entity where everything about you is available online, with the ability to fall into the wrong hands, be it corporate or government.

I do think legislation around hate crime and 'cyber abusr' etc needs to be changed, but it's a tricky one to say where's the line on what can be collected

How it would be done functionally may indeed end the conversation as to whether it *could* be done.

But its not just abuse, people are spreading so much misinformation either intentionally or because they never have to stand over their remarks and the audience growth online means a lot of foolishness is gathering mainstream appeal.

I think a point is coming where the Internet will have to change.

All our clients are now requesting pre screening to ensure anyone attending meetings hasn't visited any areas affected by the coronavirus over the last two weeks.

Spoke with someone I know from a consulting firm earlier and they said projections for even a small outbreak in Ireland could really impact things here. We'll be fine from a public health perspective, but business slow down will cost a fortune.