The reposts and expressions of shock from public figures followed quickly after a user on the social platform X who uses a pseudonym claimed that a government website had revealed “skyrocketing” rates of voters registering without a photo ID in three states this year — two of them crucial to the presidential contest.
“Extremely concerning,” X owner Elon Musk replied twice to the post this past week.
“Are migrants registering to vote using SSN?” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of former President Donald Trump, asked on Instagram, using the acronym for Social Security number.
Trump himself posted to his own social platform within hours to ask, “Who are all those voters registering without a Photo ID in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Arizona??? What is going on???”
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Yet by the time they tried to correct the record, the false claim had spread widely. In three days, the pseudonymous user’s claim amassed more than 63 million views on X, according to the platform’s metrics. A thorough explanation from Richer attracted a fraction of that, reaching 2.4 million users.
The incident sheds light on how social media accounts that shield the identities of the people or groups behind them through clever slogans and cartoon avatars have come to dominate right-wing political discussion online even as they spread false information.
I keep running into people who say moderation is impossible at scale.
It does not make surface level sense to me. But it’s true. Ban evasion is too easy. With no repercussions behavior is not socially enforced.
If you think through it, and do want moderation and bans to work, it always comes back to having to have an authoritative index of all users. And that gets dystopian almost instantly. It always needs some organization or government to tell the platform that a user is who they say they are.
What about networks of trust instead of a single index?
That sounds interesting. I’d be curious to learn if:
You and I both! Unfortunately I am familiar with the concept but unfamiliar with any specific details.
Moderation at scale, like democracy, only works with an educated user base. When your user base is too dumb to help self-police, shit gets very difficult.
So people don’t deserve, or can’t be trusted enough, to be allowed the right to have anonymous online accounts? Everything needs be tied to a centralized/government ID system because the average person is too stupid?
Not what I said. But you are proving my point.
The fact that you can’t see the irony in your own response, is more evidence for your point than anything else.
Regardless, I don’t think that should deprive you of the right to anonymity.
Cool story bro. Still not what I said.