Of course there is free speech without proof of identity. The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects anonymous speech. The right to speak anonymously is fundamental to the right to speak freely.
You haven't proven the identity of "bdangubic" to us yet here you are exercising your right to free speech.
What if you were? One has to assume most of the "people" with whom one interacts on the internet are bots or AIs now, anyway. That's just the nature of our post-truth reality, it doesn't matter.
The point is that would have no bearing at all on whether or not you would have the right to free speech if you were a person who chose not to reveal your identity.
One has to assume most of the "people" with whom one interacts on the internet are bots or AIs now, anyway. That's just the nature of our post-truth reality, it doesn't matter.
but “people” do not have right to free speech, PEOPLE do. if as you said most interactions on the internet are bots they are not covered by the bill of rights :) identity-proofing would take care of that…
You're misreading the argument.
They're not saying people do not have the freedom to speak anonymously, they're saying that computer programs, by virtue of not being a person, do not have freedom of speech under the Constitution.
Obviously you can argue that you have First Amendment protections to write programs that then speak for you, which is essentially where the argument should happen. I think a very reasonable concession is: you can write programs that speak for you, so long as they do not masquerade as another person (real or fake). I.e.: you can write a program that speaks as you, or you can write a program that speaks as a program.