Republican Presidential Candidates Debate Anonymity on Social Media

Four Republican candidates for U.S. president debated Wednesday — and moderator Megyn Kelly had a tough question for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. 'Can you please speak to the requirement that you said that every anonymous internet user needs to out themselves?'

Nikki Haley: What I said was, that social media companies need to show us their algorithms. I also said there are millions of bots on social media right now. They're foreign, they're Chinese, they're Iranian. I will always fight for freedom of speech for Americans; we do not need freedom of speech for Russians and Iranians and Hamas. We need social media companies to go and fight back on all of these bots that are happening. That's what I said.
As a mom, do I think social media would be more civil if we went and had people's names next to that? Yes, I do think that, because I think we've got too much cyberbullying, I think we've got child pornography and all of those things. But having said that, I never said government should go and require anyone's name.
DeSantis: That's false.
Haley: What I said —
DeSantis:You said I want your name. As president of the United States, her first day in office, she said one of the first things I'm going to do --
Haley: I said we were going to get the millions of bots.
DeSantis: 'All social medias? I want your name.' A government i.d. to dox every American. That's what she said. You can roll the tape. She said I want your name — and that was going to be one of the first things she did in office. And then she got real serious blowback — and understandably so, because it would be a massive expansion of government. We have anonymous speech. The Federalist Papers were written with anonymous writers — Jay, Madison, and Hamilton, they went under 'Publius'. It's something that's important — and especially given how conservatives have been attacked and they've lost jobs and they've been cancelled. You know the regime would use that to weaponize that against our own people. It was a bad idea, and she should own up to it.
Haley: This cracks me up, because Ron is so hypocritical, because he actually went and tried to push a law that would stop anonymous people from talking to the press, and went so far to say bloggers should have to register with the state --
DeSantis:That's not true.
Haley: — if they're going to write about elected officials. It was in the — check your newpaper. It was absolutely there.
DeSantis quickly attributed the introduction of that legislation to 'some legislator'.

The press had already extensively written about Haley's position on anonymity on social media. Three weeks ago Business Insider covered a Fox News interview, and quoted Nikki Haley as saying: 'When I get into office, the first thing we have to do, social media companies, they have to show America their algorithms. Let us see why they're pushing what they're pushing. The second thing is every person on social media should be verified by their name.'
Haley said this was why her proposals would be necessary to counter the 'national security threat' posed by anonymous social media accounts and social media bots. 'When you do that, all of a sudden people have to stand by what they say, and it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots, and the Chinese bots,' Haley said. 'And then you're gonna get some civility when people know their name is next to what they say, and they know their pastor and their family member's gonna see it. It's gonna help our kids and it's gonna help our country,' she continued... A representative for the Haley campaign told Business Insider that Haley's proposals were 'common sense.'

'We all know that America's enemies use anonymous bots to spread anti-American lies and sow chaos and division within our borders. Nikki believes social media companies need to do a better job of verifying users so we can crack down on Chinese, Iranian, and Russian bots,' the representative said.
The next day CNBC reported that Haley 'appeared to add a caveat... suggesting Wednesday that Americans should still be allowed to post anonymously online.' A spokesperson for Haley's campaign added, 'Social media companies need to do a better job of verifying users as human in order to crack down on anonymous foreign bots. We can do this while protecting America's right to free speech and Americans who post anonymously.'

Privacy issues had also come up just five minutes earlier in the debate. In March America's Treasury Secretary had recommended the country 'advance policy and technical work on a potential central bank digital currency, or CBDC, so the U.S. is prepared if CBDC is determined to be in the national interest.'
But Florida governor Ron DeSantis spoke out forecefully against the possibility. 'They want to get rid of cash, crypto, they want to force you to do that. They'll take away your privacy. They will absolutely regulate your purchases. On Day One as president, we take the idea of Central Bank Digital Currency, and we throw it in the trash can. It'll be dead on arrival.' [The audience applauded.]

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