What kinds of data? Depending on the conversation, it could be: age, nationality, academic credentials, profession, criminal record, etc.
The net could use a standard way to verify details that matter about a user. This would let users keep their real names private, without making it so easy for bot armies, paid agitators, bullshit artists, trolls, and others to poison public discourse.
If everyone uses the same name, 'Spartacus' would be a good choice.
Having some "fantastic" TLD to filter out the astroturf would be a priority.
Unless you're a troll or a bot or are in any way shape or form paid to post your opinions, why wouldn't you stand behind them?
It's not like we talk to people on the street with a knight's armor on
(Thank goodness it doesn’t work that way.)
On the other hand, being that inconsiderate isn’t very nice at all. Plenty of people live in places were saying the wrong thing and get your jailed or worse, like the UK: https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a...
If you can know they are celebrities, they are obviously already using their real name. I personally think, that the actual issue is asynchronicity of anonymity. If no one knows the actual identity or even identity persistence, then there is no incentive to be rude, beside the actual content of the conversation.
Merz is a fucking idiot, the first genuinely incompetent chancellor we've elected in a long time. Kohl, Schröder, Merkel, Scholz… you could disagree with their politics, but they weren't stupid. Merz is.
(Of course if we wanted truly competent, we could've had Habeck, but true competency is too dangerous to be electable in German politics.)
Friendly reminder he EXPLICITLY ran on protecting debt-limits in the German constitution, got elected on those promises and then changed course literally on day 1 after being elected.
Having less debt was indeed a major election topic of the CDU. But often in summaries of the media it was reported as if it he was against debts completely, while when he was asked in interviews if he wanted to abolish the dept-limit, he clearly refused to deny it. He answered that he *also* wants to cut funding to reduce the budget elsewhere. So in my opinion, the reports about him reversing course completely where exaggerated, and his actions were an obvious continuation to his prior election talks.
So you can hound them with lawyers and law enforcement then silence them forever when they criticize you:) If they still dare to lookup punch repeatedly with NDAs and copyright infrigement claims. Then suddenly you have no competition, you're the only and perfect candidate.
And alas they are having way too much success. Either restricting rights, or obstinately just bringing up the same awful policies again and again and again, to try to shift the Overton window against what is accepted, or to try to get a lucky break & get some of their creeping state surveillance in by luck.
No one seems to be playing the numbers game, taking 2% chance of working shot after 2% chance to actually give us rights, protect our rights. Governments just take take taking, each nation thinking it should be allowed to say how the internet needs to work.
Whats the problem with this exactly? As a politician who is part of the government then every action by these people should be scrutinised intensely. We should know who they meet, when and what was agreed.
Nobody is forcing these people to become politicians but expecting transparency from people who govern us is the least we should expect from them.
We as citizens, get to criticise the decisions they take but we are not the ones in power so expecting the same transparency is completely unwarranted.
> Merz warned that liberal democracy was at risk and said he had underestimated the extent to which algorithms and artificial intelligence could be used for targeted influence campaigns.
What a bad take. As if governments would not use these same tools to shape opinions.
> He said such tools made it possible to manipulate opinion and to undermine the foundations of a free society.
Friendly newspapers and public funded news channels have been used by various governments to manipulate opinions just as much in the past.
To claim that suddenly anonymous comments on social media will bring the end of democracy as we know it is just pure fear mongering and speculation.
If Mertz feel so inclined to only engage with people who post under their real names, he can just sign up to a social media service that requires this from their users and see what happens.
Europe is really turning into a China light these days with their dreams of client side scanning of messages and the end of privacy on the internet.
But you can officially call him "Kanzlerversager" (looser chancellor) without fearing any harm or his fragile trumpesque ego, because factually he couldn’t get a majority of the parliament to vote him into office, he needed a second try as the first chancellor in history.
This is just another try of a man that is known for his raging and temper whenever he gets critiqued to find more people he can sue and remove from public discourse because state police is going to raid your home with automatic weapons if you dare to insult someone on the internet in Germany in 2026. And most people will rather stay silent than risk their kids being traumatized 6am in the middle of the week if you remove the anonymity layer.
Let that sink in.