South Korea failed with implementation of similar legislation back in 2009[1].
From a research paper[2] that studied the effects of the legislation:
"The comparison of flaming proportions between identity verified and non-verified groups, as seen in Table 4 above, supports our inference in that the identity verified users are more likely to repeatedly write inflammatory comments and become aggressive against the opposite opinions."
"The results regarding the Identity Verification Law suggest that some potential commenters may withdraw themselves from writing comments due to the inconvenience and risks associated with the verification process, whereas others who undergo the verification process may do so because they perceive the benefits gained from becoming an online community member and expressing opinions to be higher than the costs incurred from the verification process."
The eSafety Commissioner of Australia position[3] on de-anonymizing online discussions appears to call for a repeat of the naive mistakes that South Korea made with their attempts to de-anonymize the Internet. Likely what would happen if de-anonymization legislation is introduced into Australia is:
1) Local Australian websites and online services would lose traffic to international sites that people gravitate towards (and are even less regulated and more out of Australian law enforcement reach).
2) Local Australian websites and online services will be overrun with people with fringe opinions and views that don't care about using their real name for posting up neo-nazism content, anti vaxxer content, etc. Many of these people are comfortable sharing their views today with their real identities. The reason for an overrun is that those with moderate/mainstream views and opinions will perceive online discourse with their real identity as having too much risk, with no outweighing benefits.
3) Memes and other creative methods will become more commonplace, making enforcement particularly hard if not impossible to achieve. If someone shares a meme such as "Happy Merchant"[4], did they share a picture of a happy old man not noticing the connotation of the kippah in the image, or did they deliberately share the image with an intent to incite racism? Or if we look to a case from China, is it a picture of someone relaxing on the grass by a beautiful lake, promoting tourism, or is it someone sharing the picture with an intent to raise awareness of the "Tang ping"[5] movement?
From a research paper[2] that studied the effects of the legislation:
"The comparison of flaming proportions between identity verified and non-verified groups, as seen in Table 4 above, supports our inference in that the identity verified users are more likely to repeatedly write inflammatory comments and become aggressive against the opposite opinions."
"The results regarding the Identity Verification Law suggest that some potential commenters may withdraw themselves from writing comments due to the inconvenience and risks associated with the verification process, whereas others who undergo the verification process may do so because they perceive the benefits gained from becoming an online community member and expressing opinions to be higher than the costs incurred from the verification process."
The eSafety Commissioner of Australia position[3] on de-anonymizing online discussions appears to call for a repeat of the naive mistakes that South Korea made with their attempts to de-anonymize the Internet. Likely what would happen if de-anonymization legislation is introduced into Australia is:
1) Local Australian websites and online services would lose traffic to international sites that people gravitate towards (and are even less regulated and more out of Australian law enforcement reach).
2) Local Australian websites and online services will be overrun with people with fringe opinions and views that don't care about using their real name for posting up neo-nazism content, anti vaxxer content, etc. Many of these people are comfortable sharing their views today with their real identities. The reason for an overrun is that those with moderate/mainstream views and opinions will perceive online discourse with their real identity as having too much risk, with no outweighing benefits.
3) Memes and other creative methods will become more commonplace, making enforcement particularly hard if not impossible to achieve. If someone shares a meme such as "Happy Merchant"[4], did they share a picture of a happy old man not noticing the connotation of the kippah in the image, or did they deliberately share the image with an intent to incite racism? Or if we look to a case from China, is it a picture of someone relaxing on the grass by a beautiful lake, promoting tourism, or is it someone sharing the picture with an intent to raise awareness of the "Tang ping"[5] movement?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-name_system#South_Korea
[2] The impacts of identity verification and disclosure of social cues on flaming in online user comments. DOI 10.1016/j.chb.2015.04.046. Full text: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277302786_The_impac...
[3] https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/tech-trends-and-challeng...
[4] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/happy-merchant
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping