Meta forced to reveal anonymous Facebook user's identity

https://stackdiary.com/meta-forced-to-reveal-anonymous-facebook-users-identity/

by skilled • 3 years ago

223 196 3 years ago

naillo2• 3 years ago

Good motivation to build or support platforms where this can't even be a possibility, i.e. without phone number authentication or other identity revealing steps as part of authentication.

suddenclarity• 3 years ago

I'm having trouble seeing this being a major thing in a decade or two. To me it looks more like we're running towards more control in the name of stopping hate. ID verification to access internet and social media seem more likely. Sell it as a way to stop pedophiles on social media, kids from accessing violent/nude content, and people from posting hate. We don't have anything to hide, right?

Even if a platform wanted, the laws will prohibit it by requiring user knowledge.

guwop• 3 years ago

i think 'in the name of stopping AI agents' is much more likely to be what sells this. perhaps hate spread by AI?

phkahler2• 3 years ago

> We don't have anything to hide, right?

Privacy and anonymity are not the same thing.

austin-cheney• 3 years ago

Done: https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems/blob/master...

You would need a warrant to extract the messages/identity directly from a person's computer as there is nothing otherwise to obtain.

Cthulhu_• 3 years ago

Well there's plenty of platforms like that, but they're often used by people with shady intents. Anonymity has a tradeoff like that.

dale_glass• 3 years ago

There's anonymity on Facebook? Don't they have a real name policy still?

tyingq• 3 years ago

To the degree they bother enforcing it. I still see lots of vanity accounts people create for their dogs and cats, for example.

adamckay• 3 years ago

There's a feature where you can post to groups anonymously, still using your real account, rather than creating a new account with fake data to make you appear anonymous.

bananatype• 3 years ago

Just to add to this. If the anonymous post was made on a group, the group administrators could still see it. So it's only anonymous for the rest of the (non-admin) group members.

gcoakes2• 3 years ago

There's a dead comment sibling to this one talking about how group admins can see through the anominity. I don't understand why it is dead. It wasn't even rudely stated. Is it just flat wrong, or did it cross some unknown social boundary by pointing out a fact? Was it edited posthumously?

Edit: And, when I refresh it's not dead... I don't understand this system apparently.

creer• 3 years ago

I had a similar reaction as well: Isn't that just a little disingenuous - or misplaced surprise? My impression was Facebook shouldn't rank high on privacy or free speech security ("free speech" is not defined by the US constitution, and this is a european case anyway).

On the bright side, the article is full of interesting detail.

naillo2• 3 years ago

Sidenote, I love how clean and readible this site is. No popups, just clean and well written text in the middle.

Keirmot• 3 years ago

And as a bonus it supports RSS

mananaysiempre• 3 years ago

The huge title banner with the redundant snippet and the Meta logo of the unnecessary margins could use some dieting—the black-on-white body of the article cuts of at "identifying data of an anonymous Facebook user" for me, incongruously even earlier than the dark-gray-on-black snippet above it. Otherwise it's pretty nice, yes. (Is it weird that I think text.npr.org mostly looks better than the main npr.org?)

barrysteve• 3 years ago

We really need a separate digital wilderness for single men to blow off steam.

Making the old online hitching posts (like facebook, google, video games, ect) family friendly, or else! then a lot of disaffected young men are going to be venting their lack of financial/dating success somewhere else.

Are we just going to dump these people out onto the streets and hope it all works out politically?

detourdog4• 3 years ago

We have the space already we just have to move the and build infrastructure. The nonsense is all commercial based. There is no need to know anything about visitors to a site unless you want to make money.

burnished• 3 years ago

Where are you pulling this from? The article does not discuss the nature of the messages in any way.

jeroenhd4• 3 years ago

The available summary of the preliminary injunction doesn't mention the messages themselves, but it does state that the plaintiff is being accused of (sexually) transgressive behaviour by the posts they want to see removed.

It's possible that this is just some abusive asshole using the court to clear their name. It's equally possible that the accusations are all made up and that the person who posted them has a grudge against the plaintiff for rejecting them. We have no real indication either way, other than that the judge believed that there is a chance the plaintiff is in the right.

Either way, I think it's fair to assume something went wrong during a date. I'm not sure what the rest of the parent post is referring to.

snvzz• 3 years ago

I don't see any connection to the topic at hand.

garblegarble• 3 years ago

I'm sorry but this is a terrible take. This isn't people venting about bad dating success, this is people (who understand the importance of privacy, since they post anonymously) posting personally identifying information and pictures of people they feel have wronged them romantically, like it's some sort of product review and not another human being.

tgv• 3 years ago

It sounds like the court considers facebook a publisher. Which is true in the everyday sense, of course.

mnd999• 3 years ago

If he went on the date with them you’d think he might already know their name. If not it probably wasn’t a good date.

MertsA2• 3 years ago

That kinda lends credence to the notion that the post really was just libel. If it was true and more than just a one sentence diatribe then the plaintiff wouldn't have needed to bring Meta into this suit. I don't really see what they would possibly get out of this unless they really had no idea who this was that posted about them.

tsimionescu• 3 years ago

How would they sue person X for libel if they couldn't prove that the libelous post was created by person X?

devsda• 3 years ago

May be he believes that his date went well and so the person who posted those comments could not have been the same person that went on the date with him.

He might be trying to figure out who else is making those comments.

SiempreViernes• 3 years ago

Sure, but he probably wants to be able to prove to a court that he's accusing the correct person?

ed_mercer• 3 years ago

Now I know why you should never use your real email and/or phone number when signing up for a service.

benterix• 3 years ago

True, but not enough:

The court's ruling mandates Meta to disclose key identifying information, including the username, email address, telephone number, and the IP address used during registration and logins.

piokoch• 3 years ago

No longer doable, at least in Europe, you can't buy per-paid phone card without showing you government ID. And I believe you will not be able to create Twitter (that is, X) or Facebook account without being forced to provide something more than email. I've tried, and account was immediately lock until I provide more credentials (gov id or phone number).

All of this is to fight child porn, as always, although, unlike normal people, those who earn on child porn can make that additional effort to find some homeless person, drug addict, etc. and get sim card activated.

So we are where we are with lack of privacy for regular people. Maybe one day governments will realize that not only them have access to all of this information, foreign intelligence too, which make much easier to recruit/blackmail spies and in the end, shattered privacy costs much more than imaginary child porn fight.

marcjuul• 3 years ago

Why do you think this is the case across all of Europe? You can definitely buy SIM cards in vending machines in Denmark still.

qwytw2• 3 years ago

No longer doable, at least in Europe, you can't buy per-paid phone card without showing you government ID

I'm in Europe and I can go to any supermarket and buy a cartload (depending on stock) of pre-paid cards without having to show any ID to anyone. They also work in any EU country.

oldgradstudent4• 3 years ago

Why is it news that Meta has to answer to a subpoena issued by a court in a country they operate in legally?

I was under the impression that this is routine.

ranting-moth• 3 years ago

Because people don't understand free speech. They confuse the right to anonymity to "do whatever I want as anonymous".

criley23• 3 years ago

Speaking of "not understanding free speech", in America (where Meta is) free speech exclusively refers to our Bill of Rights and the limitation on government to unfairly suppress your speech, specifically your political speech.

It is completely unrelated to a private citizen interacting with a private business in the eyes of American law, American business and Americans ourselves. The only free speech issue here from our perspective is "Is the government illegally restricting Meta's corporate right to free speech?" And no, making Meta identify a user is not a violation of their 1A free speech rights to us.

If you're speaking of a totally different European legal concept, it might be helpful for you to identify that.

cnity4• 3 years ago

This position is a slippery slope to a world where true anonymity is made illegal. Your confusion is more subtle and arguably more dangerous: that anonymity can make certain illegal actions easier does not mean that anonymity should not exist.

merth2• 3 years ago

or they don't trust the system and want to stay anon to exercise their free speach

imgabe3• 3 years ago

There is no right to anonymity. The government requires every citizen to identify themselves in various ways for paying taxes, voting, receiving benefits, registering for the draft, etc.

yxre• 3 years ago

Subpoenas are for criminal cases. It looks like this was a civil matter.

A better comparison would be the Twitter user that was tweeting Elon Musk's jet flights. This was before twitter was purchased, and Elon Musk was not able to get the court to order Twitter to hand over that information.

Maxion• 3 years ago

Subpoenas are not a legal instrument in Europe. Europe also uses civil law, not common law, so there's no criminal, civil divide like there is in the US.

In Europe, police usually have a right to request information from companies and people. This is codifed into law, there's not necessarily any legal procedure for how it needs to happen.

There are some standards on how inter-country information is requested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)

NoZebra120vClip• 3 years ago

Apples and oranges.

The Twitter user is pseudonymous at best, and was posting objectively true data, publicly available, regarding a notable, public person in these United States.

The FB user in TFA was anonymized by group membership, and posting allegedly defamatory and untrue information about a private person.

anon373839• 3 years ago

No, this is false. Subpoenas are most definitely valid and enforceable in civil actions.

Simulacra• 3 years ago

Because generally companies like Facebook, fight these lawsuits tooth and nail.

trepanne• 3 years ago

It is news to me that websites can so easily be coerced to fork over user data by private citizens prosecuting fairly petty civil actions. Is this about par for the course in European jurisprudence, or a high water mark for right to due process in the digital age?

The first order effects seem pretty benign, even salutary - but I’m not sure the court really thought through all the implications here.

Is the Dutch legal system inviting themselves to become a party to every single he said/she said drama on Facebook?

What will Facebook need to do to extricate themselves from such an odious entanglement?

jeroenhd4• 3 years ago

Slander and libel are criminal offences in the Netherlands. If a crime had been committed against someone, they should have the means to seek justice.

Normally, you wouldn't need Facebook to disclose any names because Facebook isn't anonymous 99% of the time. There are plenty of anonymous and pseudonymous forums that would be at risk and yes they too have to follow warrants should the court decide against them.

If Facebook wants to stay out of such cases, they should either leave the jurisdictions where such warrants are possible (so planet earth, probably) or they should enforce non-anonymous posts so plaintiffs can sue each other without involving a court warrant first.

mellosouls• 3 years ago

fairly petty civil actions

If you're the person having their reputation smeared by anonymous cowards it maybe doesn't seem so "petty" as you dismiss.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do; have the person slandering somebody anonymously brought into the light where there is a level playing field in which they can present their case.

bparsons• 3 years ago

This court ruling seems entirely reasonable. If a trillion dollar corporation is profiting from someone spreading malicious lies about you, it seems logical that the victim has some legal recourse against both entities.

tantalor• 3 years ago

so easily be coerced

It's a court order!

ArchOversight• 3 years ago

fairly petty civil actions

Just because this would be a civil matter in your jurisdiction does not mean it is a civil matter under Dutch law where this lawsuit is from.

ABCLAW• 3 years ago

Is the Dutch legal system inviting themselves to become a party to every single he said/she said drama on Facebook?

Legal action is very expensive. While vexatious litigants exist, the total volume of legal proceedings being commenced is not particularly large.

Manuel_D• 3 years ago

Why is this surprising? If someone accuses of you a crime anonymously, you need to know their identity to sue them for damages. Otherwise, anonymity becomes a license to libel.

ClumsyPilot2• 3 years ago

news to me that websites can so easily be coerced to fork over user data

I like how websites are special. Like no-one ever says "I am shocked that a hotel provided information to the police about a guest wanted for murder"

btbuildem• 3 years ago

One, because it's a civil case not criminal, and two, because it's Ireland aka FAANG tax haven. They can't exactly up and leave from Ireland.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

Also- if someone is making accusations, you should have a right face your accuser and address them.

bastardoperator• 3 years ago

I read it differently

Meta faces a penalty of one thousand euros per day, up to a maximum of one hundred thousand euros, if it fails to comply with the court's decision

Only 100K to completely ignore the court's ruling... Easy.

seanhunter• 3 years ago

This is absolutely routine and not news. Companies are required to abide by the legal system in countries they operate in.

Like other companies, Meta routinely comply with subpoenas for user identity, post history etc in the US too. In fact they give their requirements here[1] so law enforcement know what sort of order to bring and how to serve it on them. This has even been abused by bad actors forging court orders etc to obtain user data[2]

[1] https://about.meta.com/actions/safety/audiences/law/guidelin... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/04/us-law-en...

JacobSeated3• 3 years ago

I support the idea of anonymous accounts, but they should not be available easily to everyone. Perhaps they should start out in a sandbox, and of course, monitored more actively for signs of abuse.

Other account types should really have a verified identity imo. It would drastically limit the amount of abuse.

ivan_gammel• 3 years ago

Is there any reason to prefer anonymity to protected aliases? I'd say people should be able to post under their nicknames and only their lawyers/notaries/trustees should be able to disclose their identity in a some lawful procedure. It should not be a responsibility of a platform, but there must be someone who knows the true identity and can certify the relationship between it and the alias.

wnkrshm• 3 years ago

Then the alias itself has to be protected though, else someone could harm you by impersonating your alias.

whywhywhywhy2• 3 years ago

It would drastically limit the amount of

People happily spout abuse under their real name on Facebook. Seems very naive to think preventing anonymity would curb it as much as you think.

JacobSeated3• 3 years ago

I happen have investigated vast amounts of spam accounts and content posted by people engaged in conspiracy theories, and in my experience the main propagators of this type of disinformation are fake accounts and people hiding behind anonymity. Facebook do not even care that they are blatantly breaking the community guidelines, and will typically always ignore reports of "fake accounts".

If you get rid of the main propagators, other users will have very little of this type of content to engage with in the first place, and it WILL limit the amount of inspiration material other users will be exposed to. We only have this problem because of the easy access to social media. It used to be dubious corners on internet forums and newsgroups no one was interested in, but now everyone is exposed to all this grotesque filth.

Many such accounts main purpose is, very conspicuously, to spread misinformation, and as such there is no real reason why they should be on Facebook in the first place.

I support anonymity when necessary, but as history has clearly shown, limitless anonymity will be abused by bad actors. If there are no limits in place, then bad actors will be able to drown us in a flood of disinformation – this will, as is somewhat currently the case, allow conspiracy theorists to control the flow of information more easily. Repeatedly disproven claims can be repeated in all eternity, and we will never move these people's understanding.

Fact checking will not catch everything, unfortunately. Currently the AI systems is not fast enough to tag things that has already been fact checked, lacks context, or is just manipulative. There are consistent ways to post content and behave that does not directly spread misinformation, but when looked at as a whole, is, actually very clearly intended to manipulate people with misinformation.

So, don't reject things you don't understand so quickly.

johnnyworker2• 3 years ago

So no posts by whistleblowers or dissidents, no discussion between non-heterosexual or non-believing people in certain countries, and so on.

arijun• 3 years ago

I understand the fears people are raising here, the potential for abuse.

But on the other hand, what should someone do if they are truly wronged by something like this? They lost their job, their spouse left them, all because someone decided to slander them under the veil of anonymity. Should they have any recourse?

renegat0x0• 3 years ago

It goes both ways. If you are not anonymous, then every your action can be taken against you. I remember a post where music companies searched reddit against user comments posted on 2011.

What if you are pro trans people? In 10 years you can be prosecuted by it, if a new party is elected. It can have new 'standards'. You will not be able to contradict mainstream narrative. You will not be able to say anything against corporations and governments.

If you will do anything outside of 'boundaries' set by companies, governments you will lost your job, spouse will leave you, all because you wanted 'a better world'.

On one side of scales is a place of total invigilation, on the other is a place with internet trolls. Companies like meta and twitter are quite good in rooting our trolls. So the current situation is inconvenient, but we can live with it.

If we opt out anonymity then the overall result will be a lot worse than the current situation is.

crossroadsguy• 3 years ago

However, Meta initially responded stating that it did not find the posts defamatory and hence would not accede to his request

Oh, that’s so very Meta and Twitter and Reddit. I believe they return a delayed response only to maintain appearances of some human being having had a look at the reports.

What I don’t understand is how come a user was anonymous in a Facebook group.

Mindwipe• 3 years ago

Facebook groups have an option to permit anonymous posts, on the basis the group moderator can handle the tidal wave of bad that will probably happen.

Of course, you're not anonymous on the back end, just publicly.

subroutine9• 3 years ago

The word "Forced" here is a bit misleading given Meta faces a penalty of just 1k euros per day, up to 100k, if it decides not to comply with the court's decision.

nhinck2• 3 years ago

Do you believe that you can pay $100k to ignore any further punishment?

subroutine9• 3 years ago

I believe $100k to Meta is like $3 to me. If there is additional punishment beyond "a maximum fine of $100k", the article does not mention it.

Modified3019• 3 years ago

the Court of The Hague has ruled...

In case you were wondering where such a ruling happened.

hef198983• 3 years ago

In a court in the Dutch city of The Hague?

cuttysnark• 3 years ago

Meta faces a penalty of one thousand euros per day, up to a maximum of one hundred thousand euros, if it fails to comply with the court's decision.

Well that settles that, then.

neilv2• 3 years ago

Meta faces a penalty of one thousand euros per day, up to a maximum of one hundred thousand euros, if it fails to comply with the court's decision.

As a purely business move, should Meta just play this as a principled stand, and eat the fine?

If there's any negative reaction chatter, maybe it's on one of their platforms, in which case it's engagement?

jsnell2• 3 years ago

No.

First, why in the world do you want Meta to get into a habit of ignoring the law of the land?

Second, fines for non-compliance to court orders are not one off events. The fine is set with the purpose of compelling action. If the action doesn't happen, higher fines will follow.

neilv2• 3 years ago

I don't want them to ignore laws; I'm just asking out of curiosity, and given Meta being who they are.

As a purely business move, can Meta increase brand goodwill by publicly resisting for awhile?

NVHacker2• 3 years ago

"Forced" is a strong word given that the maximum penalty for non-compliance is 100k.

progbits• 3 years ago

Any publicly traded company will sell you out for way less than that.

shashashasha___• 3 years ago

I don't get it. what are you suggesting? that meta would break the law on purpose just because its 100k fine?

NVHacker2• 3 years ago

I'm quite sure Meta would never break the law on purpose. I'm pretty sure that on the multiple fronts where they are breaking the law, it can easily be explained by some sort of misunderstanding. And the fact that they are benefiting a lot in those cases must be just a giant coincidence.

dncornholio• 3 years ago

I love this outcome. User disrespects another users privacy by posting anonymous, so they get their privacy invoked. All systems nominal.

jeroenhd4• 3 years ago

Court case here: https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/#!/details?id=ECLI:NL:RBDH...

I find court summaries of the Dutch courts to be quite readable. Google translate also seems to work quite well.

It should be noted that this is a "kort geding", which i believe translates to a "preliminary injunction" but I don't have the legal education to say what the differences between the two may be.

Some anonymous user claims that the person who started legal action committed gross sexual misconduct. The judge ruled that there's little evidence to back these claims and that the plaintiff is suffering an impact significant enough to warrant further action.

It should also be noted that Dutch law considers defamation to be a crime (as in, illegal under criminal law), not a civil law issue.

This isn't the first time a company has had to hand over subscriber information because of libel or slander either. I don't really see what the big deal is.

marginalia_nu• 3 years ago

Dunno if this is the case in the Netherlands, but it's worth noting in some legal systems defamation is defined something like spreading harmful accusations as opposed to spreading harmful lies. The intent being that if you have an accusation that is true, you settle it in the courts rather than in the press, with an angry mob, on social media, or the like.

Since the whether or not the accusations are true doesn't factor into such a crime, it can be enforced on the presence of harmful accusations alone, which has fairly big implications for the sort of social media witch hunts that we've seen cropping up in the recent decade.

jorams• 3 years ago

The Netherlands has both. "Laster" requires the accusation to be untrue. "Smaad" is the broader form that does not require the accusation to be untrue.

Justifications defined in the law are "necessary defense" and "common interest". The second one is specified as "believed in good faith that the charges were true and that the public interest required the charge." IANAL, but I think this can apply to social media witch hunts to at least some extent.

carlosjobim2• 3 years ago

That makes the courts the sole deciders of truth, which is extremely bad in all ways.

The press can for example discover and publish evidence of corrupt dealings of a politician, while there is a minimal chance any prosecutor or court would be interested in the case.

noirscape• 3 years ago

"Kort geding" is more akin to a small claims court. A preliminary injunction afaict is more of a request to the court for the defendant/plaintiff to stop a certain action until full judgement has been made.

A kort geding is a civil court with the specific aim of solving cases that don't require a full blown legal investigation (which can take months).

Usually it's either for urgency reasons (ie. public and obvious defamation on public TV need a correction issued very quickly to prevent tarnishing someone's reputation) or because the matter simply isn't that huge (your neighbor cutting the tree on your property down doesn't and shouldn't take a full year to resolve).

A kort geding can be escalated into a full legal proceeding if either party is unhappy with the outcome however.

Someone• 3 years ago

A kort geding is a civil court with the specific aim of solving cases that don't require a full blown legal investigation (which can take months).

FWIW (probably not much; legal terms rarely match 1:1 between jurisdictions), Wikipedia thinks a “kort geding” is a preliminary injunction.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kort_geding disagrees with the “don't require a full blown legal investigation” claim, saying that the primary reason is urgency:

“Interlocutory proceedings (in Belgium often interim relief or référé) is a short-term civil procedure for urgent cases that by their nature must be decided quickly. […]

Matters that by their nature are urgent are, for example, the request to ban a strike or the request to prohibit a publication, because it is incorrect and harms the interests of a directly involved person.”

I think that’s more likely to be true.

(iOS Translation)

sebow2• 3 years ago

I feel like some of the discussion about anonimity here is kind of misplaced. Just because illegal activies can be done under anonimity shouldn't mean anonimity should be banned aswell(in order to "prevent illegal activities"). That's one of the worst things that can happen(and it's somewhat happening already), and if I'm not mistaken this could also be interpreted as illegal and unconstitutional in countries/places where there is such thing as a "right to (>and not<) associate"(and it's various forms).

And I'm sorry for the upcoming little rant, but whoever thinks they're anonymous while using a Meta(or any Big Tech platform, really) product is an idiot, tech literate or not. Not even places like 4chan have true anonimity, depending on the place & jurisdiction we're talking about[remember the case of the guy making a call to violence(illegal) that got arrested]. The 'traditional' web is not anonymous at all:not only the underlying protocol(s) is/are inherently not anonymous by design, but you add insane surveillance and you can eventually crack anything. Even things like TOR/others are not truly anonymous, and the US regime proved that if they want to find you, they will, assuming they have jurisdiction.

Coming back: I don't quite get why people talk about free speech in this context. Not only S230 is a broken f&ckfest but we're also talking about a non-US place. What's more hilarious is that even if we would have talked about the US, defamation (w/ calls to violence & other speech not protected by 1A) is still illegal.

JacobSeated3• 3 years ago

As I already discussed in my own thread, there has to be limits to people's anonymity online, because otherwise you are just allowing the bad actors to control the flow of information, and thereby also shift opinions simply by the sheer volume of information they post. This is the classical behaviour of conspiracy theorists. E.g. The "evidence" presented in Pizzagate. It is bassily a flood of non-evidence intended to overwhelm and drown meaningful facts and discussion.

Anonymous accounts should not be disallowed entirely, but they should be observed more actively for misbehaviour, including things such as spreading of miss- and disinformation and manipulative content. Sometimes individual posts does not really spread misinformation, but when you look at the bulk of the content it becomes clear that they are actually engaging in the active spreading of disinformation. This brings me to a very important point: anonymous accounts should be clearly marked as being anonymous. They should therefore not allow a profile picture.

Disinformation can also be in the form of suggestive or questioning material. E.g. Sharing a piece of misinformation and writing "interesting?" or "I really hope this is not real?". If such behaviour is consistent, then it is usually because that account is used to re-share disinformation, and if the account has nothing else of relevance. E.g. Does not have any authentic connections outside of this "conspiracy" network, then obviously it has no authentic purpose on social media.

So while anonymity is important to defend, we also need to identify the bad actors that abuse it. For this there are some behavioral patterns that are easy to identify, and this could, to some extent probably be automated already now.

sebow2• 3 years ago

Yeah, sure. But in my honest opinion even if you were to outlaw anonimity you would still have these problems. I would go as far as to say that things would be actually worse, because those bad actors would actually confuse and mis/disinform people even more.

In the last 15-20 years the internet became less and less anonymous, and yet those problems still exist and they're a central issue. While it's mostly a correlation and definitely not a causal factor (because internet adoption was non-existent back then compared to now, amongst others), it still begs the (rhetorical) question of why the pressure against anonimity.(See past and current abuses in this regard by governments/empires/etc). I'm semi-jokingly talking about a conspiracy here, because i've used both anonymous and 'very verified' platforms, and most of the time the misinformation happens on the latter. This is especially true since the facebook days, because the platform itself gives the vibe of credibility (alongside the user/entity posting it).

Trying to combat misinformation in this way is and will remain a cat&mouse game because there will always be actual bad actors which will try to impersonate/immitate the good ones. Put it like this: you have the same people walking on 2 streets: on the first one they hear Biden/Trump/Macron/etc. saying a fake thing, spreading misinformation; on the next: a random hobo saying the same thing. Which one will have the worse impact? While I'm not sure there have been done such studies/experiments, past "anecdata" tells me the influential person successfully fools a higher percentage of those people. While you could say "but once exposed, he's recognized as a fraud" and that's entirely true: we then return to my point of people trying to impersonate/fake credibility or grift the issue by saying unquantifiable or things that just cannot be entirely fact-checked (without projecting or speculation): those actors do more damage because they appear credible.

I fully agree though that there are certain aspects that need to have a 0 tolerance policy (CP and similar things) even when anonymous. And with regards to flagging anonymous users as such: would be interesting if any social network tries to make the experiment of having semi/fully anonymous modes: because honestly that would be just one of the few actual solutions to combat polariation on social media: by encouraging more free & honest discussion (even if there's 90% chance it becomes less civil).

kleton• 3 years ago

The Hague? Don't they usually stick to serious war crimes?

hef198983• 3 years ago

One of the other courts in Den Hague... Or do you think the only court in D.C. is the Supreme Court?

Vinnl• 3 years ago

The Hague is a city in the Netherlands ("Den Haag" in Dutch). Admittedly it's a bit of an unconventional name for a city, so I can understand that it might be interpreted as just a funny name for the International Criminal Court, which is seated in that city as well.

(It's also the seat of the government, so you'll also see sentences like "The Hague says..." in the media that actually refer to the government.)

didntcheck• 3 years ago

For reference, this is known as a metonym. It's most common with places, but AFAIU the term also covers things like referring to execs as "the suits" or "upstairs" (if they are based up there)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy

dragonelite• 3 years ago

Only if you're a non western country :p.

elzbardico• 3 years ago

You need to be very naive technologically to believe it is trivial to have an “anonymous” Facebook account. This probably it is only possible if you use a burner phone bought cash without a SIM card and use exclusively public WiFi hotspots.

PUSH_AX• 3 years ago

I think the key is “anonymous” from which perspective.

It's likely a safe assumption that you are anonymous from the other users, which was the original intended functionality.

You're talking about being anonymous from any and all people and agencies, and it could be argued that you probably haven't gone far enough in your description of how to be truly anonymous from even the most motivated person/agency.

larata_media• 3 years ago

“Meta argued that Facebook users should be able to express criticism, even if it is severe and anonymous.”

It’s interesting to see Meta taking the opposite stance in this argument when they’ve been so instrumental about suppressing criticism deemed misinformation by the CISA, DOJ, FBI, NIAID, CDC, etc…

rossdavidh• 3 years ago

"Furthermore, Meta's conditions permit data from users to be shared with third parties."

...I don't know if it has any legal implications, but it sure does undercut Meta's ethical high ground, that they will tell people all about their users for money in order for them to serve up advertisements. The case in question would on the surface appear at least as valid a reason.

ajross• 3 years ago

it sure does undercut Meta's ethical high ground, that they will tell people all about their users for money

I'm sorry, where do you infer that? Meta literally refused to do exactly that, and went to court to defend the practice. They're only doing so now because they lost.

loeg• 3 years ago

Meta does not share individual user identities and other metadata the court is demanding with 3rd party advertisers.

renewiltord2• 3 years ago

Go on, then. Go buy some emails from Facebook (not public ones like mine that I have listed intentionally public) and show us.

You won't be able to. Facebook doesn't sell emails or identifying data.

lesuorac• 3 years ago

I don't think you understand. The complaint isn't that FaceBook sells data; it's that it gives it freely away.

To literally quote from the Privacy Policy [1]

We share information about you with marketing vendors. For example, we share your device identifier or other identifiers

---

But this is all irrelvant.

Meta's Privacy Policy makes it extremely clear that they will share your data when there is a court order.

We access, preserve, use and share your information:
In response to legal requests, like search warrants, court orders, production orders or subpoenas. These requests come from such as civil litigants, law enforcement and other government authorities. about when we respond to legal requests.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy?subpage=4.subpage.11...

anon7331• 3 years ago

If they wanted to be anonymous they shouldn't be using Facebook or any Meta property.

someguy72502• 3 years ago

I feel there is a lack of "local" apps to emulate the old town sqaure, exactly because nobody wants to moderate and track users when a legal issue happens.

If we could make an exception in the law, then it might help create more small tech companies in small towns.

I could be daydreaming here, but: What if we make it legal to run unmoderated social media apps as long as (1) they are operated by a local company with their own software (instead of saas) (2) they function with the same kinds of limitations as a physical town notice board?

gcoakes2• 3 years ago

I don't understand. Isn't this already the case in America with Section 230? (The original post is about the Netherlands, so this is now tangenting.) It's just that no one actually acts as a platform.

I'll daydream with you except mine is different. The optimal social media in my view is one tied to your real identity. Moderation would only be applied under court order by the relevant jurisdiction for the view of the content within that jurisdiction. i.e.:

1) American posts content critical of Indian officials. That content is restricted by order of an Indian court and no such order is additionally given by an American court. It would be hidden from view within India but not from within America. The inverse would be true.

2) Indian posts content critical of Indian officials. That content is restricted by order of an Indian court. America (or any other nation) has no duty to protect that speech and thus no claim over it. That content is censored everywhere.

Additionally, everyone would have client-side filters which may be published. Emphasis on "published" because the publisher would be accountable for their words just as much as a newspaper within their jurisdiction. Though they wouldn't need to say much (i.e.: list of people I [dis]like). Unique identity and nationality are the only ones I can think of right now. More complex examples:

1) An American publishes a list of politicians who have made inflammatory public statements. They have evidence of this for each person on the list and make no additional assertions about their behavior. People not interested in such content could subscribe to the filter. (I guess people interested in chaos could view the inverse.) No court is willing to censor this list because their statements are protected speech.

2) An American publishes a list of men who have committed sexual crimes (such as in the original post). They assert it as fact not alleged crimes. They include someone who has not been proven in a court of law to have committed that crime. They can be sued for libel and possibly forced to remove the person from the list or reword the list description.

Anonymity between the user and the social media service wouldn't exist, but it might between users. The service could be mandated by the jurisdiction to unmask or otherwise ensure the accused does not fall within the jurisdiction.

someguy72502• 3 years ago

Isn't this already the case in America with Section 230?

IMO, Section 230 is too relaxed for large scale social media, but not relaxed enough for some other applications. It basically allowed big tech to mod the public square like modding a game, for it to be much larger, to move people around into biased groups, and to keep a record of all conversations, and train autocomplete bots on them..

I do not want more restrictions on existing apps. My point was that I wanted every local community to have their own online forum that's only accessible locally (through a RSA cert that rotates monthly, perhaps). They can even build minigames and cute events for themselves, and that would boost local morals and economy.

I think your thoughts on real online identities are interesting but I do not believe in either Censorship or total free speech. It's like the halting problem: I don't think there is a fixed list of rules that can always tell you the correct answer (To censor or not).

That's also why it's important for local communities to make their own decisions.

Pixie_Dust• 3 years ago

So, your Facebook posts are neither anonymous or private.

demindiro• 3 years ago

This precedent definitely won't be abused. Or at least most people here seem to think that?

I wish the article would go into detail what exactly the "transgressive behaviour" is, because now it is unclear to me how far I can take criticism that is either directly or indirectly linked to an individual.

For example, what if I have an extremely poor experience with a seller? Does it matter if this seller is a business or some random individual getting rid of 2nd hand items? What if the user being criticized is also anonymous?

In any case, I shall be using throwaway accounts more frequently just to be safe.

starkparker• 3 years ago

From the top-voted comment, the link to the case. Point 1.1 ("De zaak in het kort"): https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/#!/details?id=ECLI:NL:RBDH...

A Facebook user has made anonymous statements in Facebook groups about dating, accusing [the plaintiff], among other things, of having the intention to use and then dump women, of being a pathological liar, and of secretly recording women. Two images of [the claimant] have been placed with these statements. [the claimant] argues that the allegations are untrue and intimidating and that he suffers considerable (reputational) damage. [the claimant] wants Meta to remove what he considers to be unlawful messages. In addition, [the claimant] wants Meta to provide him with information about the identity of the anonymous Facebook user and about any other groups in which this user has made these statements.

hulitu• 3 years ago

Anonymous Facebook User

Anonymous Facebook User is a contradiction in terms. Same for Anonymous Microsoft User, Anonymous Google User, Anonymous Apple User, Anonymous Amazon User.

Meta forced to reveal anonymous Facebook user's identity

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