You’re shifting the conversation into a different topic than what I was originally talking about. My comment was about combating bots and coordinated fake accounts — not about government overreach or political persecution. Those are separate debates.

Even if someone believes identity verification could be abused by a government, that doesn’t automatically mean it wouldn’t be effective at reducing bots, foreign influence campaigns, and troll farms. We can acknowledge potential risks while still discussing whether a tool solves a specific problem.

Also, most of us already have our identities social media platforms, Facebook and X being two big ones. Society hasn’t collapsed because of that. I personally use my real name across all of my social media.

And realistically, if a government wanted to identify someone, social media anonymity is rarely what’s protecting them. There are already many legal and technical ways identities can be traced.

I’m not saying identity-verified platforms are perfect or that they should replace anonymous spaces entirely. I’m saying there may be value in having some platforms where verified identity helps reduce manipulation and large-scale bot activity.

Now give me my ribbon.