Online ID Laws & Privacy
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 4:58 am
Generally, I've found that if the Right and Left are unified on something: It's either really good or really bad. Sadly, this one's very bad.
Basically, you have the the right is pushing for online ID because of their fanatical anti-porn crusade, the left is pushing for it to combat misinformation, with both citing the claim of protecting youth.
Of course this isn't about any of these things: It's about the ability to remove any semblance of online privacy and anonymity by making it possible to conclusively trace every online interaction to specific individual. This can be very dangerous to activists and whistleblowers (and there are people willing to kill in order to prevent the truth from being exposed), and very damaging to the LGBT+ community.
To make it worse, there's a great likelihood that this would require centralized databases that could be vulnerable to data-breaches, and there was such an example recently.
While the Free-Speech Coalition (think of them as you wish) has managed to get the Supreme Court to issue a writ of certiorari (i.e. they're going to hear the case): I have no optimism regarding the Supreme Court because they've ruled wrong on so many things.
If it weren't illegal to do so, I would have no moral issue with getting organizations along the lines of ANTIFA to picket outside the justice's homes to put the squeeze on them to rule against online identification (Just to be Clear: While ANTIFA doesn't appear to be classified as a criminal organization, it's almost certainly illegal to picket outside the homes of judges or justices in order to encourage them to rule a certain way on a case that is placed before them).
Links
1. Surgeon General Advocates for Digital ID to Combat Online Misinformation and Protect Youth
2. Supreme Court Grants Writ of Certiorari for Free Speech Coalition (Free Speech Coalition, Inc. et al., v. Ken Paxton)
I think the following members would be interested in the thread owing to the way it would undermine privacy online: @delevigne-fan, @MarieGreen, @Mintcake, @RedRosa, @Silo, @TW…NTL
Basically, you have the the right is pushing for online ID because of their fanatical anti-porn crusade, the left is pushing for it to combat misinformation, with both citing the claim of protecting youth.
Of course this isn't about any of these things: It's about the ability to remove any semblance of online privacy and anonymity by making it possible to conclusively trace every online interaction to specific individual. This can be very dangerous to activists and whistleblowers (and there are people willing to kill in order to prevent the truth from being exposed), and very damaging to the LGBT+ community.
To make it worse, there's a great likelihood that this would require centralized databases that could be vulnerable to data-breaches, and there was such an example recently.
While the Free-Speech Coalition (think of them as you wish) has managed to get the Supreme Court to issue a writ of certiorari (i.e. they're going to hear the case): I have no optimism regarding the Supreme Court because they've ruled wrong on so many things.
- They reversed Roe v. Wade
- They bent over backwards to ignore the clear fact that the government and heavily pressured social media outlets to censor things they didn't like. When one considers they could definitely trigger unfavorable outcomes such as anti-trust action, or eliminating Section 230 protections (these grant online platforms civil immunity for what it's users post), this would definitely constitute a First Amendment matter. Yet, they ignored the facts in order to claim it didn't rise to the level of coercion
- They gave Donald Trump presumptive immunity for 'official acts': This had to do with the fact that he had attempted a coup in order to stay in power. Effectively, as long as it's classified as an official act: He's effectively above the law. This is more or less the premise that Richard Nixon espoused "Well, when the President does it: That means that it is not illegal".
If it weren't illegal to do so, I would have no moral issue with getting organizations along the lines of ANTIFA to picket outside the justice's homes to put the squeeze on them to rule against online identification (Just to be Clear: While ANTIFA doesn't appear to be classified as a criminal organization, it's almost certainly illegal to picket outside the homes of judges or justices in order to encourage them to rule a certain way on a case that is placed before them).
Links
1. Surgeon General Advocates for Digital ID to Combat Online Misinformation and Protect Youth
2. Supreme Court Grants Writ of Certiorari for Free Speech Coalition (Free Speech Coalition, Inc. et al., v. Ken Paxton)
I think the following members would be interested in the thread owing to the way it would undermine privacy online: @delevigne-fan, @MarieGreen, @Mintcake, @RedRosa, @Silo, @TW…NTL