Greetings. I write the following with no joy whatsoever.

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it may be necessary to legislate that any social media user who wishes to have their posts seen by more than a small handful of users will need to be authenticated by any (significantly-sized) sites, using government IDs.

This identification information would be retained by the firms so long as the users are active and for some specified period afterwards. Users would *not* be required to use their real names for posts, but the linkages to their actual IDs would be available to authorities in cases of abuse under appropriate, precisely defined circumstances, subject to court oversight. 

This would include situations where a post may be forwarded to larger audiences by others, which will be a technical challenge to implement.

The ability to reach large audiences on today’s Internet should be a privilege, no longer a right.

It is very sad that it has come to this.

–Lauren–