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  "publishedAt": "2026-06-05T16:32:01.000Z",
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  "tags": [
    "age-verification",
    "democracy",
    "digital-identity",
    "united-states",
    "anonymity",
    "US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Photography",
    "CC0",
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    "wrote under the names of “Publius” and “Brutus,”",
    "First Amendment rights",
    "Supreme Court case Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton",
    "mobile drivers’ licenses",
    "lawful speech",
    "an executive order",
    "anti-fascist (antifa) movement",
    "antifa is not an organization, but rather a “decentralized movement,”",
    "“Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.”",
    "anti-tech extremism.",
    "could be wielded to charge any domestic speaker who the government views as a dissenter with violent terrorist ideological beliefs",
    "buying data",
    "data brokers",
    "“Anonymity is Important for Democracy — and It’s Also at Risk”: Discussing Online Identity…",
    "Wikimedia Foundation Policy"
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  "textContent": "### “Anonymity is Important for Democracy — and It’s Also at Risk”: Discussing Online Identity Verification as a Threat to People’s Speech and Power at Yale ISP Workshop\n\nA passenger at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, US, scans their ticket at a biometric station to board a flight. Image by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Photography, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.\n\n_Written by: Stan Adams, Lead Public Policy Specialist for North America at the Wikimedia Foundation; and, Rossella Gabriele, Fellow-in-Residence at Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP)_\n\n**_The following remarks reflect the subjects discussed at the Yale Law School Information Society Project (Yale ISP) and Wikimedia Foundation Workshop entitled “End of the Anonymous Internet?” The workshop took place on 10 April 2026 at Yale Law School._**\n\nThe Wikimedia Foundation joined a group of technical, legal, and policy experts for this spring’s Wikimedia Workshop, “The End of the Anonymous Internet?” to examine modern threats to anonymous speech online. The event was a regular part of a long-standing partnership with Yale Law School’s Information Society Project (Yale ISP), and included a full day of presentations and panel discussions, conducted under the Chatham House rule.\n\nThe Wikimedia Foundation has long defended the right for volunteers to contribute on the Wikimedia projects anonymously or under a pseudonym, an especially important protection for those reading or sharing reliable information about potentially sensitive topics.\n\nSince the United States’ Founding Era, when the authors of the “Federalist Papers” wrote under the names of “Publius” and “Brutus,” American speakers have used anonymous speech to speak truth to power. This tradition was later enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution and, though the predominant medium has changed over time from handing out pamphlets to online posting, its function remains the same: anonymous speech enables truth-telling. Anonymity protects those who speak truth to power — i.e., whistleblowers, dissidents, and those advocating minority views — from retaliation. Speech separated from the identity of the speaker forces readers to evaluate a claim on its own merits, rather than dismiss dissent solely based on who voices it. Most importantly, anonymity enables speech that governments and others with power and influence would find inconvenient.\n\nResponding to a constellation of proposed laws threatening the entire chain of anonymous online speech, from posting to distribution and reading, “The End of the Anonymous Internet” Workshop convened an intimate group of legal scholars, attorneys, civil rights activists, technologists, and policy experts across the fields of constitutional law, national security, and civil rights. The event comprised four expert panels followed by roundtable discussions.\n\nBelow, we introduce the topics discussed at the workshop and share the connections drawn between them to clarify why the power to preserve the anonymous internet hinges on the general public’s awareness of the multiple threats we are facing at present.\n\n### **1. Child Protection Laws: Digital Identification (ID) in Disguise?**\n\nThe first panel centered around the explosion of new laws requiring online platforms to verify the ages of their users. It explored how those requirements affect freedom of speech and expression. Panelists considered various ways of defining who should be responsible for verifying users’ ages as well as the many methods for doing so, noting that lawmakers have not developed consistent or standardized approaches to either question. Regardless of which entity performs the age verification and what method they use, end users experience both real and perceived threats to their privacy. These threats produce chilling effects that deter free speech and expression and participation in online discourse. Panelists noted the shifts in legal precedent around First Amendment rights and age verification — for example, in the Supreme Court case Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, particularly in the context of laws aimed at protecting children from obscenity.\n\nThe second panel looked at the rise of digital identification (ID) systems such as mobile drivers’ licenses and other government-issued means of electronic ID (e-ID). Although digital IDs can offer convenience and support more unified interactions across various government services, they also present significant privacy risks. Careful technical design and well-crafted rules governing the use of digital IDs can mitigate, but not eliminate, these risks. Panelists also highlighted the risk that by requiring citizens to adopt and use digital ID systems, governments can erode personal autonomy and force people to provide digital ID to access both public as well as private services online. Connecting people’s personal identity to online activities can also put them at risk of retaliation for engaging in speech, expression or conduct that oppressive governments disfavor.\n\n### **2. Recent Pushes to Investigate Lawful Speech in the Name of National Security**\n\nThe risks mentioned above are already alarming enough on their own. However, more worrying is that the push toward digital ID and a deanonymized internet coincides with the US executive branch’s recent moves to enforce the criminalization of “domestic terrorism,” a term they have used to refer to the expression of political or ideological viewpoints that counter the administration’s agenda. Of course, political disagreements expressed online constitute lawful speech: it is not a crime to express dissent with government policy. The third panel, consisting of national security experts, academics, and attorneys addressed the newest threats that national security powers exercised by the executive represent to freedom of speech.\n\nThe panelists discussed two executive instruments signed by President Trump in September 2025, which target categories of speech involving domestic political dissent. The first, an executive order, labeled the anti-fascist (antifa) movement in the US a “domestic terrorist organization,” without citing any legal authority to do so. This raised concerns about the order’s impact on protected expression as the Congressional Research Service has noted that antifa is not an organization, but rather a “decentralized movement,” and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) itself has declined to designate it as a domestic terrorist organization because “belonging to an ideological group in and of itself is not a crime in the United States.”\n\nThe second executive instrument gave that designation its enforcement mechanism: a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7) entitled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” NSPM-7 directs the Department of Justice (DOJ), Treasury Department, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to criminally investigate, monitor, and disrupt organizations linked, “directly or indirectly,” to the financing of domestic “political violence or domestic terrorism.” The presidential memorandum identifies the “motivations and indicia” of domestic terrorist violence not as any _acts_ of violence, but instead as categories of disfavored speech, which include: “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism”, “anti-Christianity,” “support for the overthrow of the United States Government,” “extremism on migration, race and gender,” hostility toward “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality,” and more recently, “anti-tech extremism.”\n\nPanelists pointed out that such vague categories of speech could be wielded to charge any domestic speaker who the government views as a dissenter with violent terrorist ideological beliefs. Furthermore, it could also be wielded by law enforcement investigators to readily monitor the online activities of nearly everyone, whether through the National Security Administration’s (NSA) collection of communications data under Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA) or through so called “open source intelligence,” that is to say, buying data from data brokers.\n\nThese recent executive orders, defining anti-government speech as indicia of violence and directing investigation or prosecution therein, threaten individuals’ rights to free expression and, even if never enforced, risk causing individuals to censor their own speech online to avoid retribution. Silencing lawful speech, including dissent, online is not compatible with democratic self-governance, which requires open and honest dialogue among citizens. In the face of these twin threats, that is to say, ongoing, pervasive surveillance paired with a presidential directive to investigate and prosecute people for broad categories of lawful speech, the ability to speak anonymously online is increasingly becoming more important as a practice to voice otherwise repressed ideas and opinions that are essential to democratic discourse.\n\n### **3. First Amendment Concerns and Potential Litigation**\n\nThe workshop concluded with a panel discussing the possible legal options that companies, websites, nonprofit organizations, and individuals who may find themselves as targets of governmental suppression have for defending free speech online. The panelists shared a central concern: What kind of plaintiff would be best suited to bring forth such a legal challenge or, to state it differently, which injury would be most suited for judicial relief?\n\nIf individuals do not _know_ that they are being investigated for their online speech, they will struggle to meet evidentiary standards for bringing forth a lawsuit in the first place. Widespread awareness of NSPM-7 and the risks associated with having to “sign in” with identifying information in order to browse content and/or communicate online is the first step toward helping individuals: awareness of the kind of tracking and investigation directed by the executive is crucial.\n\nFurthermore, companies and nonprofit organizations potentially targeted by NSPM-7 may be hesitant to sue at all: effectively admitting the injury — that is to say, that they have had to curtail their speech to avoid designation as a domestic terror organization — may itself upset and companies’ stakeholders and organizations’ donors enough to cause material financial harm. For these reasons, among others, it may still take some time for these executive actions to be challenged in court.\n\n### **Final thoughts**\n\nWhen viewed together, the connections between online age verification as part of child safety legislation, the growing popularity of digital ID systems, and government surveillance targeting disfavored speech become clear. Anonymous speech is no less important now than it was 250 years ago, during the nation’s Founding Era, but maintaining a separation between speakers’ personal identities and their speech online is becoming increasingly difficult. Democratic governance, civic participation, political dissent, and even sharing free and open knowledge all depend on anonymity: if we wish to continue enjoying individual liberties and fundamental rights to self-govern our society, it must be preserved.\n\n* * *\n\n“Anonymity is Important for Democracy — and It’s Also at Risk”: Discussing Online Identity… was originally published in Wikimedia Foundation Policy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.",
  "title": "“Anonymity is Important for Democracy — and It’s Also at Risk”: Discussing Online Identity…",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-05T16:32:01.152Z"
}