The anti-abuse trap
Anonymity is a necessary defence of the honest against the malicious.
Barely hours after the death of Sir David Amess MP, his colleagues were manoeuvring for political gain. An alleged British-Somali Islamist was arrested on suspicion of murder after the MP’s killing during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea. There is currently scant linkage to online anonymity, but that has been the focus of debate.
The government has had its sights set on online anonymity for some time. When the murder of Sarah Everard took place, one of the remedies proposed was removal of online anonymity. When there was racial abuse directed at black British footballers, one of the remedies proposed was removal of online anonymity. When an MP was murdered, one of the remedies proposed was removal of online anonymity.
Policy makers – guided by focus groups – find issues sensitive for voters and use those as routes to manipulate public discourse, always to the benefit of the government. There is not a politician, journalist, media talking head or anyone prominent in public life who has not experienced online abuse. So, when the government wants to be able to track your activity online, it sells the policy as reducing online abuse. It thereby gains a sympathetic hearing from public figures.
The government wants to remove our privacy layer by layer until we are naked under the operating-table lamps of authoritarian scrutiny. Behavioural scientists know that anonymity decreases inhibition. Politicians understand that people become more guarded in speech when their real names are attached to statements. So, should online anonymity be curbed there will be a reduction in – not only abuse of politicians – but also reasoned criticism. Handy.
The Online Harms Bill does nothing to improve policing or investigation of crime. If the group Anonymous and websites such as Reddit and 4chan can discover an anonymous internet poster’s identity within hours, don’t you think that the might of the British state and its intelligence services can do just as good a job? The bill has nothing to do with crime; it is about intimidating the public. It is about shielding authoritarians from opponents, whistle blowers and leakers.
People are very aware of cancel culture; they know it applies to ordinary citizens, not just famous comedians and broadcasters. They know people lose jobs for flippant comments and sour jokes. People are also persecuted for making reasonable comments. If one criticises a gay broadcaster’s actions, one is labelled “homophobic”. If one comments adversely on a black academic’s article, one is labelled “racist”. It does not matter that a criticism is of one statement, action or person; the social-media mob will be animated by the smear that the criticism is bigotry against a group. Anonymity is a necessary defence of the honest against the malicious.
Civil servants – the younger ones being university-trained political activists – have been taught that every crisis is an opportunity. Off-the-shelf policies, such as removing online anonymity, are waiting to be fed to media commentators in off-the-record briefings or to be implemented by unregulated nudge units. Civil servants know that parliament is effectively pliant, mass media is effectively bought, social media is effectively in agreement and the public too numbed and apathetic to resist.
The introduction of an app to assist with healthy lifestyles – monitoring exercise and food consumption, with rewards for users – sounds useful. It is actually a prototype of the British social-credit system. Next year, it will be rolled out nationwide after a “remarkably successful” trial period is reported in a mass media that is as lazy as it is credulous. Into this system will be folded digital identity, online banking, digital currency, NHS COVID tracking and the vaccine passport, all done through a mobile phone, which will become an enabler and spy, of which one will never be free. Participation in such a social-credit system will be voluntary… except that without participation one will find it increasing difficult (then impossible) to pay for things, use public transport, confirm one’s identity, receive wages, access health care, enter public venues and so forth.
Every government department is gearing its policies towards a singularity – every person identified by a serial number and monitored at all times through their phone. The massive implications of this in a bio-security state – a state, moreover, which despises the general population and sees it as nothing more than a mass of potential criminals, vectors of disease and surplus consumers of resources – does not need to be spelled out. What does need to be spelled out is how misguided it is to look at government, civil service, charity and mega-corporation policies as separate or anything other than paths towards a consolidated system of control and suppression.
It’s a trap! Don’t fall for it.
