Privacy, Government, Surveillance, and You.

That is an interesting Cracked article (and I was definitely surprised about the last point, about hate speech). And it even taught me a new slang word: "dillbag". (What does "dillbag" mean, anyway?)

edited 3rd Oct '14 6:56:45 AM by MarqFJA

I think it's a combination of "dillweed" and "douchebag".

It was interesting, but the part about the Nazis made me want to stick a fork in my eye or something. Much as I dislike Huffington Post, the rebuttal was probably stronger.

That last paragraph was rather pretentious, but then "pretentious" quite adequately describes the sink of awfulness that is Huff Po.

Weird pseudo intellectual asides is pretty much Huffpuff's defining trait. Still it's refreshing to see them take an unapologetic to civil liberties.

Go back with you came from Ducks.

New web privacy system could revolutionize the safety of surfing

"The system, 'Confinement with Origin Web Labels,' or COWL, works with Mozilla's Firefox and the open-source version of Google's Chrome web browsers and prevents malicious code in a web site from leaking sensitive information to unauthorised parties, whilst allowing code in a web site to display content drawn from multiple web sites – an essential function for modern, feature-rich web applications."

Sounds intriguing.

Here's a question: What would the implications of something like SOPA or TTIP getting passed be, in relation to the thread topic?

SOPA doesnt directly affect on-line privacy or anonymity, although some concerns have been raised regarding possible abuses if the law is passed.

As for the TTIP, my understanding is that the US negotiators wanted to include "cross border data flows" within the regulations, with negative implications for privacy protection (US law offers far fewer protections than the EU currently does). The talks are on-going.

A funny joke on Jimmy Fallon last night during "Pros and Cons" of joining Ello, the anonymous Facebook service:

Pro: Your thoughts, interests, and online activity are completely anonymous and can't be tracked. Con: Or as the NSA put it, "Bitch, please."

I don't get Ello. Is it like bitcoin but for social media? Libertarian Facebook? Don't we already have 4chan? I'll pass on the Internet Home for Trolls, thank you very much.

edited 8th Oct '14 10:48:06 AM by Fighteer

Nope. It's oriented towards a social conscience, which encompasses more than mere libertarians.

That being said, I'm still a bit skeptical. I might try it out in a few months, if there's sufficient progress (technologically and socially speaking).

edited 8th Oct '14 10:48:54 AM by Quag15

Complete anonymity = fucktardery. One hundred percent guaranteed.

Yeah, look at TV Tropes.

We have good moderators. And you aren't completely anonymous. And we did have to enforce increasing levels of verification for accounts in response to fucktardery. And we are small in the grand scheme of things.

No site on the scale of Facebook can have enough moderators to police all that content without paying them, and if they pay them, they can't support the site without ad revenue.

edited 8th Oct '14 11:24:47 AM by Fighteer

It's not the anonymity that does it, it's the freedom from consequences. Now normally that's bought about due to anonymity, but not always. We could all technically be anonymous here but people are generally well behaved, because if they're not they face consequences (the banhammer), while many people are total assholes under their real names on both Twitter and Facebook because they face (or think they will face) no real punishment for their actions.

If Ello is able to actually enforce its "zero-tolerance policy toward so-called abusive behaviors" than I think it could genuinely become a civilised internet alternative to Facebook, but I don't see how it intends to enforce such a policy without either compromising anonymity, catching a lot of innocents up amongst the assholes, or creating a large scale internal non-dickary reward program.

The whole thing intrigues me though, as it ties into my personal thoughts about the internet being dividable into a "civilised" part and an "uncivilised" part.

That.

More power to them if they can make it work, but I doubt many people will be persuaded to switch from Facebook solely to gain anonymity. It needs a better selling point than that.

The issue is not anonymity per se, it's stability of identity. For instance, I have a consistent handle that doesn't reveal my real name, but does have a reputation attached to it that would quickly degrade if I started acting like a dillweed.

Pfft. Like that's going to stop the committed dillweeds.

To be honest fighter I think you're rather hostile to the idea of anonymity. Being able to speak publicly without fear of consequences is I believe is an invaluable part a free speech. Plenty of people have taking advantage of anonymity to speak out against social injustice and blow the whistle on corruption throughout history and even today.

You'll get a lot fucktardary for sure. But I don't think you'll get total fucktardary.

That depends on the way it's done, if the reputations for their actions don't matter to them than they will be asshats regardless of anonymity, now it's easier to enforce effective punishment if someone isn't anonymous but it can be done otherwise, if you introduce a privilege that needs to be earned (or purchased) than people are less likely to be asshats once they have that privilege since they value said privilege.

This discussion just makes me wish the Internet culture thread had got opened. As it seems like it would be a good discussion to have.

This.

It's not easy to denounce corruption publicly in countries like Russia or some of the Arab countries. Anonymity becomes a valuable weapon to use.

edited 9th Oct '14 3:38:32 AM by Quag15

That also makes it impossible to tell who's a government supporter and who's a paid shill or agitator — or doing it for the lulz.

Really? Most times you can tell from the first line.

People care more about who is speaking than what they are saying. You can denounce corruption secretly, from dark shadows and cloaks of anonymity, all you want; nothing will change until real people, human beings with names and faces, start making motions to change it. Until the point that someone steps up and says, "I'm going to take a stand against this, who is with me?" all that's happening is scared, unhappy people whispering to each other.

Anonymity is comfortable and safe. It allows for f*cktards to do whatever they want without fear of consequences, and it allows for activists to talk and talk and talk about all the things they wish other people would change, while feeling complacent in the illusion that they're making a difference, that if they keep talking, maybe someday someone will care enough to take the action that they won't.

This:

is true. But "anonymously speaking publicly" is an oxymoron. An opinion floating through the air without a person attached to it is just background noise.

edited 9th Oct '14 8:55:00 AM by TobiasDrake