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Use and abuse. Can we really make the internet a safer place?

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Yesterday was 'Internet Safety Day'. Which pretty much proves the pointlessness of things having days dedicated to them. Unless the internet was substantially and provably safer for the entirety of 11th February 2014, or yesterday marked the point when the web became irrevocably less hazardous, I don't really see what the whole thing was for.

That's not to say the internet holds no perils. It does. In fact, scientists have shown that it is safer to swim blindfold through a crocodile infested swamp with an unstable hand grenade, than it is to hook your laptop up to a wi-fi router. The question is, what should we do about it?

A survey by thinkbroadband.com, has established that 27% of Brits believe they should have the unreserved right to remain anonymous online. Fair enough - that's freedom, right? And we all enjoy a bit of freedom, don't we? Well, ignoring the fact that the NSA and GCHQ have shot a pretty big hole in the concept of online privacy, the attractive notion of digital anonymity comes with a host difficulties.

Imagine somebody starts an aggressively racist forum (actually, don't imagine - there are plenty of them out there). Rapidly, every meathead with a barrow load of bigotry to share, is piling in with bucket-loads of prejudiced vitriol. Steadily, it becomes clear certain members are getting organised and intend to take violent action against a minority ethnic group. This is spotted and reported to the authorities. Unfortunately, the authorities can't take action because these half-brains are all plotting away anonymously. That's the sort of 'freedom' it's hard to get behind.

Other anonymous users may take the opportunity to scare the wits out of reasonable, decent people by threatening their safety and wellbeing. Let's say they choose to do this because a young woman suggests a female face should appear on a new banknote. Yes, we'll say that, because that actually happened. Two people were successfully prosecuted for their trouble, but many others weren't. Tracking down the perpetrators was difficult for two reasons. Firstly, those with the power to move against the offenders had very little understanding of the internet and its architecture. And secondly, the idiots committing the offences were anonymous enough to evade detection for a good few weeks.

Please don't get me wrong. I loathe regulation as much as the next liberal, and the open nature of the internet is probably its most positive feature. But for every witty, razor-sharp blogger (ahem) there's at least two loose screws, desperately covering their massive inadequacies by making life miserable for other people. Some of whom are children.

We certainly can't expect HM Government to sort this out. They couldn't prevent large swathes of the country vanishing under sewage and sea water recently. However, I do think there's a good argument for an independent, transparent, non-profit body operating something akin to a web passport. With the participation of major sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google, membership of certain services would be dependent on this virtual document. Users would be free to call themselves whatever took their fancy on the platforms, but their actual identities would be recorded securely in another location. Should it be evident a user has become an abuser, the 'passport' would be withdrawn - temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of the abuse. In extreme cases, their details would be presented to the police.

Of course, this would do little to eradicate those hidden networks operated by conspiring deviants. That I accept. Nevertheless, it would go some distance in mitigating the more obvious and blatant misuses of the web, which are clearly capable of generating real distress and harm to blameless individuals.

When it comes to internet freedoms, something needs to give. Because freedom ceases to be anything worthy of the name, as soon as it impinges on the liberty of another. That's as true in the virtual arena as it is in the real world.    
 

Magnus Shaw is a blogger, copywriter and consultant

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