Hold social media to the same standards as we do the real world

Nowadays living without social media is unthinkable for most people. All the more reason to consider their anonymity. It may be beneficial for the freedom of speech and offer protection to whistleblowers and critical journalists. Still, on the other hand, anonymity on social media can cause insults, threats and (state sponsored) fake news. It’s about these reasons that in European countries with a functional rule of law, we should start the debate on banning anonymity. 

But why should we forbid anonymity on social media? There are at least three reasons to do so. The first reason requires us to acknowledge that social media are part of our public space. The norms that apply to the physical public space, need to be ‘mirrored’ in the virtual public space. Just as everyone needs to identify themselves to the authorities through an identity card or passport in the physical world, online identity should be verifiable as well. 

Misconduct

A second reason is that anonymity can reinforce what John Suler in 2004 called the online disinhibition effect, which may cause us to become alienated from who we are. In the worst case, this can lead to misconduct, which is highly unwanted. This can also happen offline, but online this effect is so much stronger.

Thirdly some accounts imitate people, but are in fact bot accounts. With anonymity on social media, the number of these fake accounts will increase significantly, with the help of rapid advancement in AI. The higher risk of disinformation, manipulation and polarization is a real threat to our democracies. 

Prevention is better than cure. Therefore, it is advisable not to assign social media accounts to bots: no identity number means no social media account.

Whistleblowers

Even though we would do well if we’d ban anonymity on social media, it is still a must to be able to express our opinion, and whistleblowers and investigative journalists must still receive protection. Freedom of expression and privacy are fundamental rights; these can remain guaranteed with the use of pseudonyms.

Pseudonyms must remain traceable to an official identity. A reliable, specialized company can take care of this by connecting the pseudonym to a citizen service number. The app Yivi for example, is provided by a company that aims to become such a trusted third party. Only certain aspects of your identity will be shared with an organization, while the rest of your data remains private. In this way, the identity behind a social media account won’t be published on the internet, nor will it be shared with the government, but it can be obtained if required by the law.

In short, the question is not if anonymity must be discontinued, but how. Who do we trust with the role of ‘trusted third party’? How do we legally guarantee the circumstances under which this identity can be requested and by who? And how is the transition path towards social media without anonymity progressing?

Anonymity can be canceled both technically and organizationally, without decaying into a surveillance society. To make this work it is necessary to consider the growing online world as an integral part of the ‘real’ world, with the same public values. The bottom line is that we must realize that a healthy democracy blossoms in a healthy public space, both offline and online.

Read Haydee’s article in NRC here.

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