Jerkface and I were talking the other day about how people are just total assholes on the internet, be it message board, craigslist, or xbox live. We both agree its because there is a lack of ‘accountability’ on the web (great article). Being anonymous and not having face to face interactions drastically reduces ‘risk’. Call someone a gay ass hole, and maybe they’ll flame you back, but that’s about it. Do that in the real world, and you might get the crap beat out of you or be fired from your job.

Attempts are being made now to include some ‘accountability’ in the web, Ebay’s User Feedback is one of the longest standing, Xbox Live has player rep, you can block people on facebook, etc. Unfortunately, the distributed nature of all these databases means that this info is pretty much useless.

However, with the oncoming wave of Friend Connect, OpenID, and whatever else develops, a truly universal online identity may be just around the corner. Other that not having to create a new damned account for every service, I think one of the nice potentials of this is universal accountability. If you’re act like a dick in a game of halo and I provide feedback, that should totally affect how likely your comments are to get DUGG. Now I know people will always find ways to create multiple accounts and that a universal ID does eliminate anonymity on the net, which in many ways is one of its great strengths.

But god damn it would be nice to have less assholes filling up the web-o-sphere.

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