The Minister of Justice, George Florides, expressed his full support for the proposal of the Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister and government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis, for the removal of anonymity in the digital world, adding new momentum to the effort to curb misinformation and fake news.
“I agree with naming those who are active on the internet, putting your name and your face,” Florides said, adopting the proposal originally put forward by Marinakis. The Justice Minister even sent a clear message to users, noting: “If they don’t want to put their details, they should not open accounts.”
Alongside the issue of anonymity, Mr. Florides announced legislative intervention on deepfake videos, saying that the Greek government is examining the Danish legal framework to make it an offence to maliciously use a person through artificial intelligence. He stressed, however, that the implementation of nominalisation requires a “broader European framework”, which is currently being developed.
The government initiative seems to be taking on a horizontal character, as the Prime Minister himself, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, during the last meeting of the Council of Ministers, referred to the need for a “natural counterweight” to the “anonymous, vulgar toxicity of the internet”. According to the prime minister, such a regulation would act as a protection for journalists, activists and political figures targeted by anonymous accounts.
In the same context, Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou stressed from the Delphi Forum that technological platforms already have the necessary “know-how” to support user identification.
It is recalled that Pavlos Marinakis had paved the way for the relevant discussion last March at the “Athens Alitheia Forum”, calling for “taking the hoods off the internet”. The government spokesman had then clarified the aim of the proposal:
“We are talking about the need to know behind every pseudonym, behind every user who is really behind every pseudonym. […] To make it very easy for the judiciary in communication with the platforms to look for who is hiding from a possible illegal action.”
Mr. Marinakis, however, was quick to allay concerns about censorship, clarifying that the measure is not about free expression of opinion or criticism, but about the possibility of accountability in cases of illegal acts.
