I don't understand the fascination with pretending. System A is bad. System B is worse. System B theoretically shouldn't exist yet it does and there's nothing you can do about it, so now you're advocating for B. What's the rationale?
I think we already laid out our argument too. A private company can do whatever they want with your data. They can sell it, exploit it, and block you from accessing it.
The government can do none of those things. They can't deplatform you. They can't exploit your data or sell it. They can't block you from it.
At least by design.
By design, having the government responsible for verifying your identity is far superior than having private companies do it, because by design they have to be truthful and forthcoming.
The flaw is that the system is failing and so right now the private system and government system are equally bad.
I agree with everything you said when considering your caveat that the government needs to act lawfully and in good faith. I also appreciate that you have probably dealt directly with similar matters. Since the government has demonstrated that it won't comply, though, I am unwilling to go in that direction, and I guess in that way we see it differently.
We might just not have the same government. I'm not American and to me this isn't a failure of government as a concept, but your government as an implementation, if that makes sense.
