ID for the Internet

 

When the weekend's European Cup final ended with England losing to Italy in a penalty shootout, the nation wailed in anguish. When young Bukayo Saka posted his penalty and wept, we all felt his pain. It is a moment that will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. (I personally hate penalty shootouts. I would prefer a "super golden goal" rule where more subs are allowed on the bench and the match plays on until somebody scores. I realize this makes its duration indefinite and might jeopardize the schedule so I would only advocate for it to be used in the final ties. Penalties make it more upsetting for the loser and anticlimactic for the winner.) Unfortunately, in this internet paradise we live in, trolls being trolls, they hurled obscene racial abuse at the non-white players. Of course every decent person was outraged by this cruelty, yet the proponents of censorship felt no qualms at all about exploiting our emotions for their agenda. Have they ever before? Media figures began calling for increasing regulation and exclusion online. They demand that the government "crack down!" on social media companies with "tough new laws!" Along with these pronouncements, Twitter suspiciously held back more so than they would normally from removing the racist abuse from their platform. I think an internet variation of Prouty's Law applies here... Left, right and centre were united in their frenzy for internet reform. Piers Morgan Tweeted: "Social media firms must end all anonymous accounts. If you want to spew vile abuse, you should be forced to do so publicly under your genuine identity, not while hiding behind the cloak of billionaire-backed secrecy. Let’s see how brave these racist morons are then." That is ironic considering how so many offendedistas have tried to silence him. Mike Graham, somebody I normally quite respect, demanded that racists be stripped of their citizenship. Seeing as how loose the definition of "racist" is these days, that is a terrifying suggestion. Source: https://www.bitchute.com/video/psmJAuHdOwk/. This reminds me of the hysteria over pornography a while ago, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/03/uk-porn-ban.html. Fortunately, complete internet control is impossible; however state and corporate actors can do a lot of damage trying. What will it mean for life privacy? What about whistleblowers? Sadly, it seems that right now nobody is asking those questions. On the contrary, somebody has started a petition calling for verified ID to be a requirement for opening a social media account. It has had over six hundred thousand signatures already. Conversely, the one calling for the repeal of the Orwellian Section 127 of the 2003 Communication Act has only had twenty thousand. My hope is that calmer voices will be heard as time goes on and the hurt wears off because right now, anybody who raises a word of protest will be accused of "pandering to racists who abuse our football heroes!"
See here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/05/ive-been-zucked.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/12/1984-removed-from-kindle.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/12/word-of-year-post-truth.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/08/video-banned.html.