Ask HN: Would Know Your Customer Rules improve social media?
2 comments
similar to the China's social credit score system?
that's required. This would only be required if service wants section 230 protection and they would no longer need to censor.
as an example: HN allows anonymity, but also actively censors bad content. Now, perhaps they might say, that they couldn't do that without section 230 protections, so would have to close hacker news down or implement the KYC rules. As I said, I don't know if the idea is workable and what higher order effects it would have. that's why I'm just throwing it out there.
as an example: HN allows anonymity, but also actively censors bad content. Now, perhaps they might say, that they couldn't do that without section 230 protections, so would have to close hacker news down or implement the KYC rules. As I said, I don't know if the idea is workable and what higher order effects it would have. that's why I'm just throwing it out there.
People who value anonymity or pseudonymity won't like this, but I wonder if some of social media's ills could be solved (or helped) by enforcing strict "know your customer" type mechanisms on players that want section 230 protection. The point of section 230 is that facebook, twitter et al aren't responsible for the post, the poster is. But that doesn't do any good in a world where there's no KYC and anonymity and pseudonymity are rampant
Yes, it would suck for people who want the ability to be anonymous or pseudonymous (and there have been serious debates on this in the past over "real name policies"), but perhaps that's a price we have to pay.
Someone can still create a service that allows anonymity and pseudonymity, but they will be responsible for the content, and not benefit of section 230 protections.
Free Speech is important, but Free Speech that lacks consequences to the speaker can be dangerous. If we don't want the social media companies to censor, we have to put the consequence of dangerous speech on the speaker, not on the social media companies. Today, the consequence of the user's "dangerous" speech seems to mostly fall on the service and hence their desire to censor. Which is why even KYC while allowing anonymity and pseudonymity might night work, as the platform will still bear the brunt of the consequence, not the speaker.
Perhaps, it wouldn't make a difference, i.e. Trump was never anonymous.
I dont know how it would impact their ability to work internationally, so as I said, it's not a full thought idea, just an idea I'm throwing out there.