The bot problem is solvable by using a web of trust system. You don't need a digital ID for that (i.e. you don't need to tie your digital world identity to a real world identity, nor you need a central agency to manage these).

In web of trust, anyone could publicly certify who they know is a real person (i.e. validate a link from their id to another id). Then, if you received a message from someone, the system would find the path in the graph of real people you trust, to determine the trustworthiness of the source. So if the account is a bot, there would be no path from it to you in the trust graph.

The advantage is that everyone could supply their own subjective trustworthiness score, altering the graph. They could even publish it, so that other people could use trustworthiness assesment of accounts they personally trust.

The big issue with a system of web of trust is that it is too efficient, and just kills commercial advertising (and also propaganda). Because that is all about overcoming the natural web of trust that humans have.

Then the politicians should be honest about this goal. The best way to solve a problem requires understanding what the problem is. If we pretend to solve another problem, the solution for the actual will be less than ideal.

That's actually great for social media companies to create a profile on you and feed you ads. They don't care about the bots or denocracy. The only hope for a real public debate is to show up in person at the debate.

>Some of the biggest social media influencer accounts turns out to be Chinese/Russian bots trying to fuel hate/division our democracies

This is propaganda, none of those supposed networks exists or were successful in anything and when the media do show some supposed accounts they don't have a lot of views. Please stop falling for this, your democracy sucks because the politicians suck and the people want change so they turn to extremist parties.

Yes. Control of information and citizen's behaviour is a higher priority for them than sovereignty.

What are you referencing here?

They possibly do, which is why France invited Musk to attend a hearing.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/musk-summoned-by-fr...

But they would gladly use that for more control.

This has been noticeable since Tahrir square; I used to say that Twitter gives you a revolution whether you need it or not.

But it's becoming increasingly clear how badly compromised the whole thing is with fake opinions and enemy propaganda.

I don't like either of the options. I don't like control by the state, and I don't like control by mad billionaires. I don't like the far right cesspool of 4chan, but can't disagree with their position that they shouldn't have to care about OFCOM.

>My government has been talking for a while making the case that social media use makes us dumber, sadder, and more scared. I believe it's true that they also see that playing out in elections, but that's not where they want to solve a problem.

The governments themselves are "dumber, sadder, and more scared". They are worried because social media puts regular people talking on equal footing to official propagandas (being able to reach everybody else). That's what they fear, because they have the lowest approval ratings and legitimization in over half a century, and they're also making everything shittier and shittier to the benefit of their corporate overlords.