DynamicSpirit
Established Member
That sounds like a horrifically easy way to enable state abuse, especially for some the more oppressive regimes (and tbh, given the way our own country have treated people who had views the government doesn't like - think of how protestors of various kinds have been treated over the years, it sounds horrible even for us too).
Without wanting to get off-topic, I think for the UK that fear is exaggerated. Yes there are regimes that abuse people horrifically, but frankly many of those regimes are learning to control the Internet anyway, completely irrespective of anything we do in the UK. China in particular is already very obviously miles ahead of the UK in controlling social media access. I very much doubt that anything we do to clean up social media in the UK would have any influence on what happens in China. Within the UK the way to prevent any state abuse is to have a very robust system of checks and balances on what the Government can do (which to some extent already exists).
But in the end, the British Government does not regularly send rape threats, death threats unwanted and threatening sexual pictures etc. to women. Whereas we know that many thousands (maybe, tens or hundreds of thousands) of ordinary people in the UK, when allowed to act anonymously, will happily send those kinds of messages. If you want to make the online world a safe and inviting place for everyone, I really don't think you have a choice about making sure that people can be identified.