One of the interesting aspects of the Steemit experience is that we have an identity and a reputation attached to that identity. There are people in this community that we could trust, purely on the reputation they have attained as a Steemit participant.
There are many blockchain projects that are working on a system of reputation for business to business relationships. They could also offer that for individuals. If we can tie identity (which could be a pseudo identity) to reputation on the blockchain, many of the issues you discussed would be solved.
Here's a whitepaper you might be interested in. They have already built a ledger which verifies identity without any personally identifiable information on the ledger.