The real name obligation – attack on freedom, security and civil courage

What is sold as a measure against hate, disinformation or digital agitation turns out to be a dangerous attack on the foundation of freedom of expression on closer inspection. A mandatory real name requirement may sound harmless, almost technocratic, but it radically changes the network’s architecture. Behind the promise of transparency is a control instrument thatDiscourages people, silences and transforms the digital public into a filtered, monitored and censored territory. The price of this kind of political order love is high: freedom against version, courage against fear, democracy against data sovereignty.

The creeping suppression of freedom of expression

The right to give real names is freedom of expression in their most sensitive place – in the courage to be open. Who knows that each statement of its own remains permanently linked to its name, profession and address, think twice about expressing criticism. Silence will be safer than speaking. This climate of self-censorship destroys what makes a democracy come alive: the struggle forTruth, the bold word against power and majority, the voice of experience against the comfortable lie. This is particularly dangerous for those whose reality of life does not fit into the social norm – whistleblowers, victims of violence, people with uncomfortable political positions, refugees, minorities. All would say less in a public space under real names, lesswrite, dare less.

The end of the civil courage on the Internet

Anonymity is not an enemy, but a protective shield of democracy. It allows anyone to share thoughts and experiences that would otherwise remain in the shade without fear. When this protection falls, conscience withdraws and the landscape of opinion is impoverished. A real name requirement means that only those who are allowed to afford it can be loud – materially, socially or politically.Whoever has nothing to lose, shouts the loudest; Whoever could lose everything is silent. The result is a distorted public in which the courage to exception becomes the norm.

The vulnerable privacy

A duty to the real name opens the door to abuse. Every statement, every criticism, every comment becomes a potential risk. Employers scour through profiles to sort out applicants, companies punish supposedly disloyal opinions, and political activists are specifically threatened. Especially in authoritarian contexts, the real name obligation is transformed into aIntimidation tool. Whoever criticizes the state, politics or the group, delivers itself. This is how democracies have to be avoided: fear of public speech.

From data protection to data weakness

Technically, the idea of a mandatory name link is a powder keg. The mass storage of real identities, linked to online profiles, communication data and location information, creates a gigantic attack surface. Any data leak, every internal glitch, every targeted attack by cybercriminals would endanger millions of people. Names, contact details andCommunication content could fall into the wrong hands and be used for extortion, damage to reputation or persecution. The past shows that no database is permanently secure. But the political belief in organized control over digital identity remains unwavering – blind to the reality of technical vulnerability.

The underestimated threat of abuse

Behind closed doors, such a data collection would be an Eldorado for economic espionage, political surveillance or targeted disinformation. States, authorities and companies were given access to a tool that allows them to map any deviant behavior. The mere possibility of being able to understand who said something is enough to silence peoplebring Digitization becomes a disciplining instrument.

The cost of control

The implementation of a real name obligation would not be a bureaucratic marginal project, but a mammoth apparatus of test procedures, identity comparisons, objections and data protection supervision. Every step creates bureaucracy, uncertainty and disputes: Which ID cards are accepted? How can errors be corrected? How should children, older people or people without a permanent residencebe verified? All this causes immense administrative costs without the social impact ever justifying the effort. Instead of safer communication, a sluggish monitoring system is created that burdens authorities and incapacitates citizens.

Repression as a digital side effect

Politically, the obligation to give real names opens a door that can never be closed again. What begins with the promise of decency quickly ends in the normality of surveillance. Anyone who shys away from responsibility or criticism of government will find the perfect tool in the real name obligation. Authorities can evaluate user profiles, draw cross-connections, interpret comments and dissentcriminalize. Even the idea of being able to be identified at any time changes people’s behavior. The digital public is transformed into a space of caution, where opinion only exists in a dosed form.

The exclusion of the vulnerable

This duty is the hardest for those who enjoy little protection anyway. People in precarious life situations, those affected by domestic violence or religious minorities risk direct danger through a duty of name. Their digital security, often their only refuge, would be destroyed. When they leave the web public, society loses critical perspectives,empathy and diversity. A real name obligation would therefore not be progress, but a relapse – back to a society in which only the majority is allowed to speak and the minority becomes invisible again.

The illusion of improvement

The proponents argue that “real name” respects respect and take offense at hostilities. But even in analogous insult people under real names, lies under contract and bullying under contract. Hate does not arise through anonymity, but through irresponsibility, and this cannot be banned. Anyone who thinks they can solve cultural problems with the real name obligationConfused with morality. This does not make the public discourse cleaner, but quieter.

The self-destruction of democracy

Every democracy lives from the courage to think, also from the courage to uncomfortable truth. A real name obligation weakens this courage and strengthens those who want control. It transforms digital communication into a kind of permanent compulsory identification, which no longer regards citizens as free individuals, but as potential security risks. With this logic, the state undermines the trust that itactually want to get. Anyone who only lets people speak under observation proves that they no longer trust them to be free.

The social regression

In a socially speaking manner, such a regulation cements the gap between power and powerlessness. Those who have influence and security can appear under real names – politicians, companies, media representatives. Those who depend on protection will withdraw. The circle of public voices is shrinking to those who are already heard. The digital arena, once a place of diversity, woulda tribunal of adaptation. The discourse loses depth, democracy loses breath.

Technical paradox and control mania

Even more absurd is that even a mandatory use of names would hardly be enforceable in practice. People would find detours – new platforms, wrong data, foreign servers. This is how a paradoxical system is created: The honest ones deliver their identity, the bad ones bypass them. Control meets the wrong ones, abuse remains. The real name obligation thus drives the honest onesCitizens in vulnerable zones and encourages those who are not intimidated by rules anyway.

Freedom has a right to invisibility

The real name requirement is not progress, but a step backwards into an era in which conformity promised security and was silent virtue. It destroys trust, devalues anonymity as a legitimate property right and transforms citizens into transparent beings. Freedom also needs the right to invisibility, to pseudonym, to risk without regret. This is the only way to leave room for dissent, criticism andindividual voice.

When a state begins to tie opinions to identity, it falls back into controlling reflexes that it had long thought to be overcome. A democracy that only lets its citizens speak by real name reveals itself – and in the name of a peace that is nothing more than silence.