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The British developer of the world wide web says he is worried about the way it could be used to spread misinformation and "undemocratic forces". The web has transformed the way many people work, play and do business.But Sir Tim Berners-Lee told BBC News he feared that, if the way the internet is used is left to develop unchecked, "bad things" could happen.
He wants to set up a web science research project to study the social implications of the web's development.
Web Inventor Fears For The Future [news.bbc.co.uk]
I think the web is already being used for misinformation. As social networking expands into new areas and grows over International borders the opportunities for misinformation in a wider field abound.
Trust is going to become a bigger issue in social networking.
You can't be serious... there are millions of "real" reasons why people would want to publish anonymously.
one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist
Oh please. There are teachers in Kurdistan in Eastern Turkey who have been beaten up, imprisoned and raped for teaching their students in Kurdish. This isn't to do with "freedom fighting" or "terrorism" or anything political - this is just about being able to exercise what we might consider basic human freedoms without being under a real and serious threat from the state's monopoly of violence.
You know the Scottish constabulary aren't going to knock on your door at two o clock in the morning because you told a joke in a chat room that you thought inoffensive, but the Scottish administration didn't see that it way.
Millions of people around the world don't have that luxury.
People should be able to say what they want without having their name put to it if they don't want to. I'm still not sure why you find this concept so inconsistent with democratic society.
Libel against a person or an organisation, when false, can easily be exposed and countered, even if the perpetrator of the false rumour remains anonymous.
Who told you that? Why did they tell you that? What kind of increase, and compared to what? And most important: What, exactly, consitutes abuse?
As for anonymity, the majority of the users of this very site are anonymous to the other members here. That is perfectly fine. It is not impossible to show that any given argument is bull#*$! because the person making it don't tell his or her name to the world.
there are millions of "real" reasons why people would want to publish anonymously.
Millions? Really? Name me five?
Oh please. There are teachers in Kurdistan in Eastern Turkey who have been beaten up, imprisoned and raped for teaching their students in Kurdish. This isn't to do with "freedom fighting" or "terrorism" or anything political - this is just about being able to exercise what we might consider basic human freedoms without being under a real and serious threat from the state's monopoly of violence.
Ronin, I am aware of this. I understand and sympathise with many of the world's oppressed. But this is Webmasterworld and not the place to beat the drum for political freedom. If you want do that there are more effective places to make your voice heard. This is not a human rights forum.
People should be able to say what they want without having their name put to it if they don't want to. I'm still not sure why you find this concept so inconsistent with democratic society.
I think you are defeating your own argument. In a democratic society people should (within reason) be able to say what they want AND put their name to it without fear of retribution. In a democratic society the need to remain anonymous is often (not always) because poeple are doing something illegal or something with which they would rather not be publicly associated.
As for anonymity, the majority of the users of this very site are anonymous to the other members here. That is perfectly fine. It is not impossible to show that any given argument is bull#*$! because the person making it don't tell his or her name to the world.
As I said in an earlier post this is not the issue. This forum is strictly moderated and possibly one of the most conservative on the Internet. Perhaps that is what makes it so successful but we all know who runs it. That's no secret and Brett is fully accountable under US law.
I hear these arguments about freedom and human rights issues being trotted out every time this subject gets raised but if we are honest with ourselves this is more about about profit than human rights. There are millions of <anonymous> people worldwide making a living in scummy, illegal activities on the Internet. Let's be honest, the pressure for anonimity and/or lack of accountability is more about them than teachers in Kurdistan and I think that is why Tim Berners-Lee was concerned.
[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 7:33 am (utc) on Nov. 21, 2006]
As opposed to, say, the US, EU and the Commonwealth, where human rights are certainly less of an issue than online misinformation?
Again, I do see your points, pro-anonymity-speakers, but I think you see problems out of proportion.
Again, I do see your points, pro-anonymity-speakers, but I think you see problems out of proportion.
Wolfadeus that's what I was trying to say. It just took me a bit longer. :)
In a democratic society the need to remain anonymous is often (not always) because people are doing something illegal or something with which they would rather not be publicly associated.
Presumably that's why we all write our names on our voting slips when we go to the polling booths?
Anonymity of the individual is a democratic safeguard not an abuse of democracy.
Democratic societies allow their citizens to be anonymous when they wish and to declare themselves when they wish. Authoritarian societies are not so easy-going.
TBL may be worried about how the web might be used to "spread misinformation and 'undemocratic forces'" but misinformation can be countered just as easily whether it has a name attached to it or not.
No.
Do you have to show your ID before you go to a polling booth?
Yes.
To prevent abuse of the suffrage and protect democratic societies and their legislation.
I think you made my point, ronin.
Showing ID before voting enables you to vote once and disables you from voting more than once. But you're not asked to write down your name on your voting slip so everyone can see who you voted for.
Likewise signing up with an ISP enables you to have internet access. That's something entirely different from requiring that individuals (effectively) write down their name beside every comment they ever make, every joke they ever tell and every opinion they ever give on the net.
We can all shrug our shoulders and say: "Oh yes, but McCarthy was a long time ago," but I'm really not convinced this kind of thing ever becomes an irrelevant issue.
As for stalking... how much easier would it be for a stalker to persecute their victim when they can find out surname, telephone number, address, email, IM nick, myspace account etc. at the touch of a button?
Likewise signing up with an ISP enables you to have internet access. That's something entirely different from requiring that individuals (effectively) write down their name beside every comment they ever make, every joke they ever tell and every opinion they ever give on the net.
Ronin I think you are twisting this around because AFAIC remember no one has suggested that names should be written down against jokes. That's kids stuff. We are talking about real accountability here - not insisting that kids must sign their name on their forums or whatever.
All I am saying is that people should not be allowed to distribute or publish stuff anonymously whether it be on websites or through email.
And jokes are very far from "kid's stuff".
See Mark Thomas, Rory Bremner, Bill Hicks et al.
It is the Fool in King Lear who is the only one who dares to speak frankly.
<snip> To truly own an argument requires exploration of all viewpoints. But I'm not here to argue, just comment.
<snip> I'll just share 5 reasons why I would like to keep my anonymity:
1. I don't want people from my past, ex-girlfriends, loser friends, etc coming to my house or calling me up, or otherwise performing any kind of research on me.
2. I may want to criticize religion and religious people and I don't want random nutcases coming to my house. Web rage may be rare now, but how many people even know what whois is. That could change.
3. I don't want to have to constantly worry about what a future (or current) employer may think about the things that I write. Sarcasm doesn't work well on the net, and things can easily be taken the wrong way.
4. I don't want the government knocking on my door. If I post some natural cancer remedies, either anecdotal or with references to published research, I don't want the government harrassing me. (well, the government can probably find me no matter what right?).
5. I don't want to be sued. Unmerited lawsuits are initiated everyday. I don't want to be sued for criticising a company. Even if I'm only stating true facts I could be sued. I don't have time for that.
Bonus: I simply enjoy having my anonymity. It's just a comfortable freedom to have. If this freedom makes it easier for people to do bad things so be it.
[edited by: lawman at 6:25 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2006]
[edit reason] TOS #4 [/edit]
If this freedom makes it easier for people to do bad things so be it.
Freedom?
John, if this is your definition of freedom I am afraid that you are going to have to include me out. What you are talking about is not freedom but lack of accountability. We are not just talking about signing your name in a forum here.
When people are allowed to do what they want without fear of retribution then they will. The Internet has proved that. If we stop trying to find and prosecute murderers what do you think will happen to the murder rate? What if someone uses the anonimity of the Internet to promote the murder of innocent people? Is this acceptable collateral within your definition of freedom?
This has nothing to do with freedom per se. Sadly there are a lot of bad people out there. They need to be controlled and that is a fact beyond dispute. Even the most honest people will start to question their own scruples when they see people "getting away with it". This is a slippery slope and it gets worse on a daily basis. Surely you can see this?
I am willing to sacrifice a degree of what you define as "freedom" to live in a better World. One where people do not defend a system that freely permits scammers, paedophiles and pornographers to illegally send their unsolicited, offensive and criminal material to me and my family. I see people laughing merrily at stuff on their mobile phones nowadays that would have had them branded as criminals for possessing it 15 years ago.
Like TBL, I fear for the future if this is allowed to continue.
[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 9:54 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2006]
When people are allowed to do what they want without fear of retribution then they will.
To "do" what they want or to "write" what they want?
If we stop trying to find and prosecute murderers what do you
think will happen to the murder rate?
It will most likely go up. But no-one here is advocating that people who commit crimes should not be sought out and prosecuted.
What if someone uses the anonimity of the Internet to promote the murder of innocent people?
What if the internet loses its anonimity and it becomes impossible to do that? The same person will go back to distributing pamphlets and faxes (as they did in the seventies, eighties and early nineties) which are just as anonymous and even more underground - to the point where they can't be challenged in an open arena by people who want to expose the nonsense for what it is.
Fortunately documents on the internet which promote race-hate and criminal activities can be challenged in the open arena rather than letting them fester underground.
Sadly there are a lot of bad people out there. They need to be controlled and that is a fact beyond dispute.
"Bad people" need to be "controlled"? Sorry, BDW, but you've just got into bed with every dictator and mass murderer in history. Not to mention Jack the Ripper.
You can't really mean what you just said.
If you do, I guess we'll never see eye to eye on this one. >;->
"Bad people" need to be "controlled"? Sorry, BDW, but you've just got into bed with every dictator and mass murderer in history. Not to mention Jack the Ripper.
Don't be silly and don't start associating me with your nonsense! This has nothing to do with Jack the Ripper or dictatorship. It's about enforcing laws and statutes created by democratic nations.
Don't you agree that bad people should be controlled and accountable? If not you are right about one thing. We ain't going to see eye to eye on this one and I have nothing more to add to your comments so you have the last one.
From a pragmatic viewpoint, however, what do you think about simple comparisons like this one: My uni receives about 90 spam e-mails per second (viagra, Nigerian begging, etc.); I don't know how many e-mails it gets that are crucial to support human rights activists in totalitarian countries.
What I think is that the not-so-nice aspects of an anonymous Web 2.0 outweigh the advantages.
Don't you agree that bad people should be controlled
I agree that those people who I think are bad should be controlled yes.
But this is patently an absurd and untenable position.
Because if I demand that right for myself then I also concede that right to everyone else. So everyone then has the right to "control" who they think are "bad people". So all atheist liberals get to have religious conservative fundamentalists "controlled", all religious conservative fundamentalists get to have homosexuals "controlled", all extreme vegans get to have omnivores "controlled" etc.
Wolfadeus:
Ronin, I take it that you are not an anarchist, thus accepting in the "real world" that societies have laws and rules individuals got to follow. Referring to Jack the Ripper and dictatorship is frankly ridiculous
No, it's not ridiculous. People like Mussolini and Franco and the Whitechapel Ripper thought there were "bad people" who needed to be "controlled". You cannot take this line in the abstract without giving these individuals both justification and licence for their actions. If you think there are bad people and you reserve the right to control them, obviously you have just handed the right to someone who thinks you are a bad person to control you.
Note that I am not talking about criminal activity here and yes I absolutely agree that societies have laws and rules which individuals need to follow.
But demanding that everyone should be publicly accountable for every wiki edit that they make?
Also, as I have stated above, this is not about human rights activists. It is about normal people living and being able to live normal lives.
But this is 2007 and we face an increasing amount of harmful and criminal activities on the web which arise out of the absence of any accountability if you are smart enough not to leave traces.
we face an increasing amount of harmful and criminal activities on the web which arise out of the absence of any accountability
This is just sensationalism. The number of documents published on the web which advocate criminal behaviour has increased exponentially, that's true - but then the publication of all types of document has increased exponentially.
However, while it's easier to publish on the web than it is to publish by pamphlet, post, fax or minitel (I might be wrong on that last one) it's also easier to trace, monitor and keep track of such documents.
I'd rather documents advocating criminal behaviour were published anonymously on the web than published anonymously and distributed by post. I don't know what the police's opinion is or the opinion of the intelligence services, but I suspect they would also go for the former over the latter.
Forcing everyone to declare authorship will just lead those who are writing documents advocating criminal behaviour to use false identities (which leaves us where we are now: relying on other methods to determine authorship) or else push the publication of criminal advocacy documents underground.
I can't see how this argument justifies demanding everyone who publishes (in the broadest sense of the word) on the internet to attach their name to what they write.
I wish I were as confident as you in my employer, my manager, my colleagues, my acquaintances, my commercial rivals, my contacts, my girlfriends, journalists, my political representatives and all the people who will fall into those categories for every year of every decade of the rest of my life. Yes, I hope they're all good people and they always will be. Yes I hope I'm always a good enough person that I never upset them to the point where they might go muckraking through my past to dig up kompromat*
But even if I do end up living in such a social paradise, I'd be pretty optimistic to imagine that everyone else will too.
Like most authoritarian measures this would end up restricting the freedom of the lawkeepers who remain within the law no matter how restrictive it becomes while not affecting the lawbreakers very much, who don't care about the law and will seek out and exploit every available loophole.
*It's a Russian word - it means "material with which you can blackmail someone".
Yes Brett dares to put his name to his statements. But Brett is by far the minority, as he is only one (1) user.
So, "BeeDeeDubbleU" who are *you*, really, today? Why does *your* profile not even contain your real name? What are the benefits of anonymity if you may have them but others not?
It could be, say, that "BeeDeeDubbleU" was really Tim Berners-Lee, Brett Tabke, or Madonna (which is just another nickname). That is, some person who is fairly well known in some circles but values his/her privacy and is not able to talk on equal foot with others if privacy isn't there. That situation is actually quite common, eg. the Queen of Denmark publishes graphical artwork under a nickname.
She or he could also be more than one individual. It could be a group log in, and hence a statement said one day could be contradicted another day.
She or he could also be one of those criminal types s/he uses as support for his/her arguments. Perhaps phishing for allies among those that counter his/her arguments the most.
S/he might in fact be strongly in favour of anonymity, but express the opposite viewpoint in order to gauge how much support his real (hidden) agenda has.
S/he might even own a firm that sells surveillance equipment, or ID-cards or something like that.
S/he could even in the extreme be a fascist or member of some anti-democratic movement. Or a member of Greenpeace, or an anarchist, a jew, red-haired, tall, skinny, or some other minority. A chinese government researcher. Or, one of the so-called "moral majority". Or just "an average joe". A student of rhetorics. Or, a troll.
All of this is purely theoretical, but knowledge of any of these facts would make us all view his/her statements in an entirely different light.
Not knowing any of this is in fact what permits us to take the statements posted under the anonymous "BeeDeeDubbleU" username serious. That is: Focusing on the argument, the debate, and not the personal objectives.
[edited by: lawman at 12:29 pm (utc) on Nov. 27, 2006]
All of this is purely theoretical, but knowledge of any of these facts would make us all view his/her statements in an entirely different light.Not knowing any of this is in fact what permits us to take the statements posted under the anonymous "BeeDeeDubbleU" username serious.
I am not so anonymous that I must hide behind a handle. A few of those in the forum that have exchanged stickies with me know who I am and I am willing to state my case whether or not the listener knows me.
But then saying that that someone has to be anonymous before you can take them seriously is surely a bit radical?
Perhaps you missed this point when it was discussed earlier in the thread. Forums like this, where people like us mouth off about all and sundry are not the problem. As was said earlier, anonymity in forums is not a problem as long as their is ownership of the forum and the owner is willing to be accountable for what is said in there.
I always assumed that anonymity in this forum was necessary because new people are often too scared to ask questions in case they appear silly. They don't hide behind their handles because they are terrorists, paedophiles or criminals ... I hope? We discussed this earlier and fora are not a good basis for this discussion.
Tim Berners-Lee said "Certain undemocratic things could emerge and misinformation will start spreading over the web". Some people in this thread have been wrongly focussing on the Internet as a place where you can look at websites and mouth off in fora. We need to think of the net as a bigger picture including email and all other methods of net communication that are in place and being developed. I think that is where he sees the problem.
[edited by: lawman at 12:29 pm (utc) on Nov. 27, 2006]
I always assumed that anonymity in this forum was necessary because new people are often too scared to ask questions in case they appear silly.
That may be one reason, but I think there are many more genuine reasons...
For example, many people don't want their bosses or colleagues to know that they post here. This might be because they don't want them to know that they don't know the resolution to a technical problem, and have to ask, or more commonly, they want to let off steam about their employers/colleagues. Not because they want to badmouth them, but because they have encountered a work related problem which other people here might have encountered, a kind of therapy, if you will. And for this we need a degree of anonimity :)
[edited by: HelenDev at 9:55 am (utc) on Nov. 27, 2006]
It is extremely hard for me, personally, to imagine any "undemocratic thing" that has not already emerged, either during the 30 years of the web or in the millenia before it. It is also totally beyond me why misinformation on the web is seen as a problem at all.
Undemocratic things and misinformation is a part of daily life and have been so for as long as there has been people. Neither of those concern the interent. On the contrary - the way to deal with both of them is information, information, information.
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As for what laws deem "legal" or "illegal" that is another problem entirely, because the laws of this world are not equal. Neither are the penalties. Some offences in my country are perfectly legal in other countries, some penalties by imprisonment in my country would be death sentences in other countries. Even though two countries are both "democratic" and "civilized" their laws may easily differ by very large margins in some areas.
Who are to be the judges about which ruleset should be the right one? And what criteria should be used for selecting these, based on which kind of moral and ethics?
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Personally I will defend the right for any journalist, paedohphile, tax evasive person, serial killer, artist, terrorist, liberal, conservative, nazi, jew, communist, atheist, intelligence officer, businessman, police officer, vegetarian, rotaryan, freemason, hippie, school kid, professor, or "any average joe" to say whatever s/he likes at any time without putting his/her name to it.
That is to me a safeguard, and a very important one, of democracy and a free society.
I will also at any time defend my own right to agree or disagree with any of these *with or without* putting my name to it. I will -- and I do -- happily put my own name to that.
Personally I will defend the right for any journalist, paedohphile, tax evasive person, serial killer, artist, terrorist, liberal, conservative, nazi, jew, communist, atheist, intelligence officer, businessman, police officer, vegetarian, rotaryan, freemason, hippie, school kid, professor, or "any average joe" to say whatever s/he likes at any time without putting his/her name to it.That is to me a safeguard, and a very important one, of democracy and a free society.
Then I believe you are very misguided, as is anyone who would try to defend the rights of criminals to "say whatever s/he likes".
The motives of anyone who defends the rights of criminals to commit crimes in the name of "freedom" must surely be very suspect. I think you must be mischief making because I cannot believe that any sane person would defend the rights of terrorists and/or paedophiles to say what they like anonymously.
You see to me as a responsible, accountable person this is very worrying and if that is "freedom" then just lock me up!
Moderators let's wind this up now. It has been allowed to get out of hand.
