Tony's stash of textual information

Mainstream society seems to use Facebook as the de facto way of evaluating how trustworthy an Online Person is.

They think: “Does this Facebook-profile have 300+ Facebook Friends? And does a human face appear in the Profile Photo? If yes, this Internet-stranger is trustworthy. If no, let me avoid contact.”

But that conflates the role of a forum – which is to allow like-minded people to gather – with the role of an identity manager, which is to prove that someone is indeed who he claims to be.

(In fact, Facebook's leaders have encouraged such conflation, with exhortations like “Use your real name” and “Avoid using multiple Facebook accounts”)

But I disagree. I say that such conflation has to stop. A forum should remain a forum, where users can be as anonymous as they like. And if you want to prove your identity, you should use a specialised tool for that, such as Yarmo's invention, Keyoxide. (More info: https://nlnet.nl/project/Keyoxide/ )

What do you think?