Nikki Haley wants to force social media companies to verify each and every one of their users:

“The second thing is, every person on social media should be verified, by their name. 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.”

This is almost certainly unconstitutional. But, irrespective of its legality, it’s also a bad idea that ought to be opposed on the merits. It is telling, I think, that Haley twice conflated the two arguments she was advancing. First she said:

it’s a national security threat. When you do that, all of a sudden, people have to stand by what they say.

Then she said:

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 next to what they say.

Well, which is it? Is the problem here that foreign bots present a “national security threat”? Or is the problem a lack of civility online? Certainly, these two matters overlap from time to time. But they aren’t the same issue. Incivility on the Internet is not a “national security threat.” And, irrespective of whether they pose a “national security threat,” not all foreign bots are uncivil. Watching Haley, I can’t help but wonder if she’s reasoned herself backwards from her starting position: Everyone online ought to be verified, ergo . . .

Nor would these two issues be “fixed” in the same manner. If all users online were forced to submit to verification, most foreign bots would be removed as a result. By contrast, it would be possible for social media sites to purge as many foreign bots as they could without forcing the verification of American users. Haley doesn’t tell us which of these two problems she think is greater. Indeed, she doesn’t distinguish between them at all. That’s a lousy way to approach the imposition of an extremely heavy-handed government regulation.

In my view, Haley’s assumptions are wrong. Naturally, I have no use for foreign bots. But anonymous speech can be extremely valuable. The Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers were both published anonymously. And, in our own era, it is one of the best ways to avoid the rampant censoriousness that has infected so many of our elite institutions. It is true that many of the worst people on the Internet spew their bile from behind a cloak. It is also true that some of the best people on the Internet are able to speak as freely as they are only because their anonymity inoculates them against retaliation. As a foundational political matter, I do not consider it to be the role of the federal government — let alone the executive branch of the federal government — to make our national conversations more civil. If we have a problem with bad behavior from foreign actors, then we ought to address that in as limited a fashion as possible. To tie that effort in with the wholesale superintendence of American debate would be inappropriate in the extreme.