RE: The "self-sovereign" problem (was: The SSI protocols challenge)

+100  to this perspective, especially #3. Many Asian countries and a number of European countries consider community stability more important than individual freedoms. We can't expect them to agree with the notion that privacy and self-sovereignity of the digital identity is more important that government oversight of the digital identity.Victor.Sent from my Galaxy
-------- Original message --------From: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> Date: 2021-03-22  6:32 a.m.  (GMT-08:00) To: public-credentials@w3.org Subject: The "self-sovereign" problem (was: The SSI protocols challenge) On 3/21/21 11:57 PM, Adrian Gropper wrote:> Are we, as a community, being shy in using self-sovereign to describe our > perspective?My response below is for people that feel like the question above has an easyanswer. I expect the following to be misconstrued or quoted out of context,which is sad, but here goes; everything below is said without any valuejudgements.Remember that not all nations and people of the world view "self-sovereign" asa purely positive thing. I'm not shy about using it, just very careful, andtend to avoid it as it tends to distract focused conversations.To speak to at least three overly-broad categories, self-sovereign is notviewed as an entirely positive thing among:1. Authoritarian-leaning groups.2. Non-authoritarian sovereign governments.3. Non-western societies where the importance of the   individual is not placed above the importance   of the community.I don't think that anyone is here to support #1 above. #2 and #3 are why Itend to be careful about using the word "self-sovereign". It's useful whenspeaking to others that understand the nuance. It can be thoroughly confusingor shut down conversations with those that don't... and even when educatedabout the nuances, the message doesn't land well with the latter two groups.I end up doing far more damage control when the word "self-sovereign" isincluded than if I just stick to "verifiable credentials and decentralizedidentifiers".-- manu-- Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.blog: Veres One Decentralized Identifier Blockchain Launcheshttps://tinyurl.com/veres-one-launches