Social media is central in many of our lives, but few would say thats a good thing.
Despite its initial promise,swathes of Europeansfeel the technology has had a negative impact on society.
While it promised to bring us together, the opposite has happened.
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Requiring people inside the EU to use identification before they can post on social media.
But is this a good idea?
Could it help make online platforms safer and more trustworthy?
This viewpoint is supported by Andrew Bud fromiProov, a London-based identity verification and authentication service.
On the surface, things seem clear: social media is being weaponised against both democracy and individuals.
Yet its not quite as simple as that.
Dubow from CEPA cautions against viewing social medias negative impact on elections as pure fact.
CEPAs Dubow believes so.
Thats probably not the best idea.
Rashik Parmar is the chief executive ofBCS, The Chartered Institute for IT in the UK.
Lesh from the IEA is even franker.
He splits the problems into two main points.
The second point is security.
Sometimes its held, sometimes its deleted.
The issue is that by spreading it far and wide, youre open to more potential for abuse.
Which is a problem on the incredibly global scale of the internet.
The issue, though, is far more societally complex.
To hold the power over vetting someone to use social media?
That sounds like the slipperiest slope around.
Not rocking the boat
Whats the answer?
Should the EU require ID to use social media?
Theres no simple response to that.
To put it another way, youre jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
This makes it highly unlikely that the EU will ever require ID for social media.
And requiring ID to use social media isnt that.
Things, for the moment, will stay as they are online.
Sometimes, its better the devil you know than the devil you dont.
