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MOTION: : THBT internet anonymity violates freedom of expressionbeing able to be anonymous makes people unable to themselves freelyWHAT ARE WE CLAIMING: OPP CLAIM: anonymous helps freedom of expression/ MEAN CLAIM: risk the safety of others/ encouraging crimes by people being anonymousPeople tend to...

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MOTION: : THBT internet anonymity violates freedom of expression being able to be anonymous makes people unable to.express themselves freely WHAT ARE WE CLAIMING: OPP CLAIM: anonymous helps freedom of expression/ MEAN CLAIM: risk the safety of others/ encouraging crimes by people being anonymous

People tend to think of cyberspace as some kind of imaginary space without true boundaries, a space not to be taken too seriously Ladies and gentlemen, I am Iman Nabeeha the prime minister for the government side. Our house believes that internet anonymity violates freedom of expression. Before we move on to my arguments firstly let me define the motion for today's debate. Internet anonymity here means that user's identity is concealed, preventing it from being shared with other online users or a third party and freedom of expression means the power or right to express one's opinions without censorship, restraint, or legal penalty Thus the government interprets the motion as the risk of being anonymous online, restricts one’s ability to express themselves via the internet. We as the government have structured our case as follows I as the prime minister will be talking about the risk of illegal activities and internet encouragement of hate speech online, our second speaker will elaborate on And lastly, our third speaker will summarize our points and provide relevant rebuttals. Ladies and gentlemen let's be realistic here, you're never completely anonymous. As quoted by Pete Swire who used to serve US President Barack Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology” It’s much harder to be anonymous than it was 20 years ago, at least from the biggest companies and the government,” Thus this will lead to My first argument where people will use anonymity as an advantage to do illegal activities and your security will be at risk. As I have mentioned earlier, no one is completely anonymous online, there must be some clues or some tracks of yourself online without you really knowing. This is where by being anonymous, people have the ability to track you down or know information about yourselves, be it weather it is a normal citizen or a big organization. Being anonymous restricts someone’s ability to express themselves as they know that they’re not safe and they’re very much aware that

information of them are laying around somewhere on the net thus they tend to avoid socializing in general and avoid expressing their opinions eventhough they very much would like to have a say. Now ladies and gentlemen being anonymous itself is very risky where it will lead to illegal activities such as hacking, stalking and cybercrimes. Not everyone in this world are an angel, some people can be very mean and seek revenge behind the screen. The estimated damage are measured in billions of dollars per year, but the human cost, in terms of ruined reputations, loss of trust, and a general deterioration in morals, is immeasurable. While all this is dangerous enough, there is a much more ominous aspect to anonymity. Were if anonymous communication become default, then it would be available, not just to the private citizen, but to the state and to those individuals comprising it. In just the span of a few short years, people’s comfort level with the internet has risen to the point where information-sharing can be careless or reckless. For example, the nth room is a popular criminal case involving blackmail, cybersex trafficking, and the spread of sexually exploitative videos via the Telegram app for two years. The preparator were anonymously sending links to women and children which led to their identity being exposed and threatened to send nude videos or even suicidal challenge which involves cutting themselves for online views. People would anonymosly pay for these videos.

Now of course these men were able to able to express themselves freely with their sexual desires but there is a limit to how much you can use freedom of expression to your advantage and these men were certainly using it in the worst-case scenario. The victims however were anonymous but once they clicked the link they ended up being vulnerable where their identities were exposed. Even though these victims were anonymous on the internet, their identities were known in a split second and they were unable to express themselves freely to ask for help online. As mentioned before, youre never completely anonymous and the opposition is trying to risk the security of citizens. POI: You mentioned that there is a risk of illegal activities by being anonymous and victims are unable to express themselves freely but wont the organizations be able to reduce the risk of the crimes and hold them accountable?

Accountability requires those responsible for any misconduct be identified and brought to justice. However, if people remain anonymous, by definition, they cannot be identified, making it impossible to hold them accountable. Of course as mentioned, youre not completely anonymous however for the organizations to track down every single person out of 7 billion people that commit cybercrimes what are the odds? No matter how powerful an organization or government is, no one can track every single person and hold them accountable especially when they're anonymous, its extremely time-consuming and

requires a lot of manpower. The solution is not increasing technology to track these preparators for freedom of expression to be conducted its a matter of protection. Internet anonymity must be protected for there to be freedom of expression but since internet anonymity is at risk of being identified or being known, it violates the freedom of expression that is mentioned in the debate.

Moving on to my second argument is by being anonymous online, it restricts one’s freedom of expression because it encourages hate speech. This is because when your identity is hidden people wont trust you or the claims that you have made online thus leads to people unable to express themselves freely due to the lack of trust. The standard defence of online anonymity is familiar: it protects people exposing repression, corruption and hate, and allows stigmatized and abused communities to find safety when revealing their real-world identity could expose them to harm. These are all good reasons to preserve anonymity, but there is also a lighter, more cultural case. Anonymity enables people to join new communities and explore the absurdity of today’s internet without those identities overlapping or contradicting each other. Now when youre anonymous people dont know who you are and its very easy to be another person for example, by pretending to be someone famous or someone else. For example, a kpop idol woojin an ex member of stray kids was accused of rape and sending nudes but it turns out that another person was pretending to be him online and send photoshopped nude photos instead and caused woojin to dissapear from the entertainment industry. Now relating back to hate speech is where, when someone pretends to be you, its either people find out that youre fake and cuss you or people believe that youre someone special and throw hate speech at you instead of the real person. Why? because theyre anonymous they believe that they woudnt get caught nor will anyone believe the victim’s claims. And when the real person tries to persuade online that they are the real ones, no one would believe them and this is why most kpop idols in south korea avoid social media in general or they would turn off the comments section to avoid any scandals or issues from arising. This obviously does not apply to just idols it applies to everyone in public, look around you probably 1 out of 5 people have PTSD due to internet anonymity.

POI: you mentioned that internet anonymity will encourage hate speech and that violates freedom of expression, but cant people just use self-censorhsip?

Yes. People can use self-censorhsip where the term here means that you voluntarily choose to censor yourself where you choose not to express or say something. However, when we mention self censorship it means that we are generally referring to situations where someone would like to share something but decides not to out of fear or pressure. So im assuming that you meant that we should pressure people into not saying anything that will cause a negative effect on the public which to be honest it could be effective but the question is how can we pressure thousands of people on the internet, how can we control mass media and anonymous people. The term internet anonymity is already giving people the freedom to be in power when theyre online. We as the government believes that self-censorship will only be effective in the short term because when people see that theres no action towards them after a while theyll be more aggressive online thus leading to hate speech.

Ladies and gentlemen

While anonymous communication is not necessary for there to be freedom of expression, it clearly ensures that no restrictions or punishments can be imposed on anyone, Does this apparent benefit outweigh its costs? We as the government are not claiming that being known is much more better than being anonymous to express yourself because clearly once your identity is known is far more worse but we are saying that thre are e risk of being anonymous makes people unable to express themselves freely and it is not entirely positive, the costs certainly outweighs the benefits than the opposition arguments will be claiming....