Issue: October 29, 2021
US lawmakers play with the idea of social media ID verification, following proposals from other countries
A draft discussion bill hints at future proposals.
By Tom Parker
Posted 12:50 pm
Anonymity is often vital for those who want to speak truth to power and expose government wrongdoing. We only need to look to the US government’s treatment of National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to see how far governments will go to target those that don’t have the shield of anonymity when they reveal information that governments want to hide.
And in 2021 governments have renewed their efforts to end online anonymity by proposing and introducing new laws that force users to hand over their identity documents (IDs) to use social media and by framing online anonymity as something that needs to be eradicated.
While most of these government efforts to end online anonymity have been widely covered in the media, America’s recent proposals have managed to stay out of the spotlight.
But despite flying under the radar, these proposals do exist in a discussion draft that was introduced by Congressman John Curtis in May.
The discussion draft aims to “require a provider of a social media service to verify the identity of users of the service, and for other purposes” and prevent anyone from creating a social media account without verifying their identity.
Not only does this discussion draft intend to make ID verification mandatory for anyone who wants to create a social media account but it also wants to force social media companies to report users to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) whenever they suspect users have submitted fake IDs. Additionally, it contains a requirement for the FTC to submit these reports to the United States (US) Department of Justice (DOJ).
Social media companies that fail to comply with the terms outlined in this discussion draft will be targeted under section 18(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 57a(a)(1)(B)) which allows the FTC to define “unfair or deceptive acts or practices,” impose additional requirements on companies to prevent these acts or practices, and introduce “significant civil penalties for rulebreakers.”
While the discussion draft does include an exception for social media providers that have annual revenues of less than $1 billion for three consecutive years, the large social media platforms where the vast majority of the more than three billion total social media users are registered will be forced to verify the real identity of their users under the discussion draft’s current requirements.
Alternative social media platforms will only be shielded from this requirement if their revenues stay below the annual $1 billion threshold and if the discussion draft becomes law, this limit could be encroached upon and lowered, as has happened many times before with other laws.
We obtained a copy of this social media ID discussion draft for you here.
https://reclaimthenet.org/draft-us-law-social-media-id-verification/