The issue with digital identity is that people don’t have a single, unified identity. Identity, like many things, is a social construct, not part of some natural order. As a dual national, I'm acutely aware that when and how I assert an identity credential, or characteristic, depends on context. Therefore, digital systems that help us assert these identities must be responsive to people’s contextual needs and under their control. Otherwise, we’re just building more surveillance tools.
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@torgo what ontologies have been built to describe context?
@torgo It's the same issue with names: They don't work the way people think they do.
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
Maybe we should accept is some way to verify someone is the same person as we met before and let that be enough?
(Some self-generated cryptography public/private key system and maybe some way for other people to vouch for them would work for that.)
Maybe we can just accept that we will never solve this perfectly? Just one of those things which technology alone can't solve without causing way too much trouble for the weakest, easiest to exploit, least able to defend themselves people in our communities.
@torgo Yes and also searchable internet spaces are a constant cc-all environment when it comes an identity marker. Maybe I don't want my class students to find my Jojo's Bizarre Adventure slash fics when they google my name? And maybe I don't want to have to sanitize my online participation to the absolutely lowest race-to-the-bottom opinion threshold of all people I have to coexist with?
I think the only people who think mandatory online ID is a good idea r people who have no life out of work
@torgo and maybe even things like... multi-user devices coupled with humans who practice differently gendered work... and for more fun, they work for the different companies (login in emails) that use the same platform.
because simpler is easier to design for than actual people are to control? (i hope)
@torgo a lot of confusion arises when there's no shared understanding of identity in a particular context, or even the context itself is unclear. We see this in #ActivityPub development, where a plethora of different mental models and perspectives are complicating severely the standardization process.
An example is this #SocialHub post and onwards pondering "What is Nomadic identity?" ..
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/nomadic-identity-for-the-fediverse/2101/77
@smallcircles @torgo gotta say: I'm still not convinced nomadic identity is a good thing on a trust & safety basis. It feels like something that will almost certainly be used by abusers for harm. But I've also been staying away from discussion because I don't have the energy for it.
@thisismissem @smallcircles @torgo not to turn this into a Discussion but how can nomadic identity lead to abuse? if anything, it can *reduce* abuse because if you inherently recognize that two identities are controlled by the same entity and blocking one can block all other linked identities. if you don't recognize it, then it's no different than having alts that share the same content. it's basically just database cloning with failover. of course spinning up a new identity is cheap either way.
@thisismissem @torgo
I can well imagine that. I gather that in order to get further on a healthy evolutionary trajectory for the fediverse, thoughts must be given to further improving the commons-based 'specification development process'.
If everything is free-range text, perceptions and opinions representing often narrow interests, then each get-together will lead to suboptimal outcomes. Each person leaves a discussion with own expectations of what was agreed upon, and what will happen next.
@thisismissem @torgo
I can well imagine that. I gather that in order to get further on a healthy evolutionary trajectory for the fediverse, thoughts must be given to further improving the commons-based 'specification development process'.
If everything is free-range text, perceptions and opinions representing often narrow interests, then each get-together will lead to suboptimal outcomes. Each person leaves a discussion with own expectations of what was agreed upon, and what will happen next.
@smallcircles Im still enraptured by the metaphysical insights from the Thomist Principle, Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.
Peoples mental models are wildly different, it takes an awful lot of skill and insight to align perspectives and definitions.
Our curiosity towards #chaordic governance is appreciating autonomy gains from things such as Fediverse but recognising tradeoffs.
Its infinitely harder than narrow protocol design.
@indieterminacy @thisismissem @torgo
> appreciating autonomy gains from things such as #Fediverse but recognising tradeoffs.
👆 This! Especially the "recognising" part is important in our grassroots environment. It implies having a good overview of all that is going on and being cocreated.
De facto with #ActivityPub protocol flexibility, under-specified areas, and its ad-hoc chaotic on-the-wire protocol-decay inducing evolution we get the opposite of narrow protocol design. A Big Ball of Mud.
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