Nikki Haley: ALL social media users should be 'verified by their name' to protect 'national security'

Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley made an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday in which she called for all social media users to be verified by their name in order to protect national security. Haley, it seems, wants to do away with the anons.

In fact, it's not just a planned policy initiative, but a day-one priority.

"When I get into office, the first thing we have to do, social media accounts—social media companies, they have to show America their algorithms. Let Americans see why they're pushing what they're pushing. The second thing is every person on social media should be verified by their name," she said with passion.

"That's—first of all, it's a national security threat. When you do that, all of a sudden people have to stand by what they say. And it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots and the Chinese bots. And then you're gonna get some civility when people know their name is by what they say," Haley said.

"Accountability," chimed in the news anchor.

"And they know their pastor and their family members are gonna see it? It's gonna help our kids and it's gonna help our country," she concluded.

A recent case wherein an anon Twitter user Douglass Mackey, who had been posting under the pseudonym Ricky Vaughn, was doxxed by a journalist. After that doxxing, Mackey was prosecuted for posting a joke on Twitter, which was at Hilary Clinton's expense. Biden's Department of Justice tried and convicted Mackey on charges of election interference. He was sentenced to 7 months in prison. Haley's goal to force anons to use their names could either suppress their free speech rights or potentially lead to further political prosecutions of dissidents.

A bill brought by Democrat leaders before a Congressional committee in 2021 aimed to regulate social media companies' algorithms in an effort to moderate content. The bill would have stripped online platforms from protection under Section 230 if they either intentionally or recklessly used personalized algorithms to moderate content for users in cases where that algorithm materially contributed to physical or emotional harm befalling that person.

In the UK, a law banning anonymous social media accounts was proposed by former Home Secretary Priti Patel. The Cato Institute warned that "such a proposal should concern everyone who values civil liberties." In the US, anonymous speech is roundly protected by the Supreme Court. In fact, anonymous speech has a long history in the US, going back to the Federalist Papers written by three of America's founding fathers under the pen name Publius. The Federalist Papers were written to defend the new Constitution and encourage its ratification. It was written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison.