The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized
I agree with a lot of this post. A lot of the left-leaning intellectuals that are now criticizing the harder-left stances in academia; people like Brent Weinstine, Jonathan Haidt, Sam Harris, et. al. ... I&#x27;ve heard all of them say they want less anonymity and more accounts tied to real identities.<p>Whenever I hear this I think, &quot;What? No! That&#x27;s the opposite direction we should be going.&quot; Identities that are hard locked to real people makes it so easy to harass, mob, cancel and abuse people. At least in the US, most employers are at-will, allowing for Viewpoint Discrimination.<p>Anonymity does have its issues. It also does allow people to harass with more impunity. But in many ways, it also exposes more of the deep self and the controversial ideas people have that they are less and less likely to discuss outside of anonymity.<p>Even semi-anonymous platforms like Reddit are going back on previous commitments to free expression of ideas; and the effect is that Reddit is becoming more one-sided&#x2F;one-direction, just like the platforms everyone is fleeing into.<p>Always use your e-mail to sign up for things. I rarely ever allow applications to connect via social media&#x2F;OAuth. There was a time on the Internet where we thought all identity providers could be interchangeable. I ran an OpenID IDP for years, but fewer and fewer sites allow OpenID logins:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;battlepenguin.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;the-decline-of-openid&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;battlepenguin.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;the-decline-of-openid&#x2F;</a>