Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Exec: Online Anonymity Must Go Away
Chaonici writes "The EFF has a blog post about what appears to be Facebook's stance on anonymity on the Internet. Speaking last week at a social media conference hosted by Marie Claire magazine, Facebook's Marketing Director, Randi Zuckerburg, is quoted: 'I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.' This position appears to apply to the entire Internet, not just Facebook (which already requires that its users post real names instead of pseudonyms). The EFF goes on to point out how this would be a bad choice for civil liberties online."
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Anonymous Online person: Corporate people must go away !
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
'I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.'
This quote makes it sound like this is a very recent realization and that this problem hasn't existed since the beginning of the internet. Furthermore, it totally overlooks one half of the double edged sword of anonymity online. You may retain your privacy through anonymity, you may be safer from stalkers and thieves by remaining anonymous and you can speak without fear of retaliation -- whether that be deserved (the only cases Randi Zuckerberg seems to be able to conjure up) or undeserved.
I mean, we're posting on a site that seems to handle anonymity just fine. Is it impossible for Facebook to spend the effort to discover how they could accomplish the same thing?
Furthermore what in the world is she saying "on the Internet" for? Here's an idea: you stick to Facebook and the rest of the sovereign internet will follow or not follow your lead.
And yet further, I would argue that implementing a verification system is more complicated and more risky than simply dealing with spam and trolls in an intuitive way. Do you propose we each have some secret identification string that establishes our true identity on a given site? And when those are lifted wholesale by a foreign entity what then, Randi?
Side rant: Holy nepotism, Batman! Hey, Mark, did you ever think that maybe Facebook wouldn't be so hated and being thrashed so much in Public Relations if the person in charge of it actually earned that position by merit? How do I know your sister didn't achieve this position by merit? If she was good enough to hold this high of a position at one of the most valuable internet companies, she would have known to issue a non-statement on anonymity as she would have researched this problem just a little bit more than relying on her psychology degree to say "Gee, people are jerks when they can say whatever they want--let's just stop that." She didn't offer a solution and all she did was piss a bunch of people off. GO TEAM ZUCKERBERG!
My work here is dung.
Company with vested interest in tracking people by their actual names online thinks everyone should use their real names online?
"... and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors".
That's because people CAN SAY whatever they want behind closed doors.
It seems only fair to let them lead by example. Anybody know what it would cost(in round numbers) to get more or less panopticon-caliber surveillance done, 24/7 on the upper echelons of the house that Zuck built? Perhaps some of Rupert's boys are back on the market?
am I happy that I was right not to have an FB account .....
You can't handle the truth.
While I'm perfectly fine with beating the Internet Fuckwad Theory, repressive politics, not just in China, but also their recent rise in the west, requires that anonymity has to be possible.
Randi Zuckerburg is a dipshit whose business model revolves around selling the private information of other people.
Anonymous free speech is a cornerstone of democracy, and, quite frankly, if I want to go online and do something not under my name, that's my bloody right.
Why am I completely unsurprised that someone with the name 'Zuckerburg' feels that I should have no privacy? Fuck him.
Anonymity will be the standard, since the laws of humans are no match for the laws of mathematics.
Lack of anonymity invites intimidation, surveillance, censorship and prejudice. This is what must go.
(captcha: attacks)
P.S. Reputation can be conveyed pseudonymously. If the holder of public key A is known for good behaviour, you may be justified in trusting them, even without any high authority (to whom you'd have doubtless no access anyway) knowing what color of underwear they prefer to buy, and how frequently they do it.
We are talking about the same facebook, right? The wonderful one where nobody's an ahole
Who cares what some manager at the next Geocities has to say about it? Facebook is a fad, it too will pass.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Anonymity on Internet used to be a rare exception. It's the spammers/identity thieves/excessively nosy employers who made it this way. Does the author really want to get phone calls based on sites he visits online.
It's kind of funny that The People(tm) argue about the Internet as if it is completely unrelated to the real world. no one (I hope..) would say "I think anonymity on the streets has to go away. People behave a lot better when they are tagged with their real names."
I'm cool with using my real name in the web (see my account at /.), but I would never accept regulations that ban pseudonyms.
"The Internet" is not Facebook, no matter how much it may feel that way for Facebook principals. If Facebook, or Google+, or whatever trendy social network fad of the year wants to require real names, fine. I can think of many cases where such a policy is desirable. The operator of this or that service should be free to adopt the policy that meets their needs, but extended that policy to the Internet as a whole is just absurd.
A friend of mine used to be pretty open about her online identity... until she got a box of sex toys mailed to her with no return address.
The arguments for lack-of-privacy are fundamentally inconsistent. We are told that people "behave better" when there is a risk of consequences, but also that there are no harmful consequences. These cannot both be true. While most people don't need privacy most of the time, you rarely know in advance that you will later turn out to have needed privacy.
People tend to make arguments like "well, don't do anything you'd be ashamed of", but this only works if you have a guarantee that the rest of the people in the world are all basically sane. They're not. Furthermore, lots of people don't get a choice; you don't get to say "hmm, lots of people object to transgendered people, guess I won't be one."
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Are they trying to get google to buy them and merge with G+ kinda like the whole google-video vs youtube thing?
Of course ... two competitors come up with the same philosophy; have to consider, maybe because its correct?
All the car companies seem to have standardized on "righty tighty lefty loosey" WRT to screw threads with only the strangest most required engineering exceptions, not because they're all in a plot against us, but because it just makes sense to manufacture screws that way (assuming the eternal legacy of manual metal lathes being built for right handed machinists)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
People like being able to say what they want, without fear of landing in jail; and so if you insist on policing what essentially amounts to nothing more than conversation in a bar -- then guess what, people can and will go else where.
I don't have people standing in a bar monitoring the rubbish spilling from my mouth, even if it might offend some or be deemed anti-gov or w/e by others, so why is it acceptable to do it online? Wake the fuck up Facebook, no one is endorsing your oppressive 1984-style bullshit. Why would people WANT to use a service that could cause them a lot of problems.............???????
"This position appears to apply to the entire Internet, not just Facebook (which already requires that its users post real names instead of pseudonyms)"
Yes, and it's long proven how well it works on Facebook too. Just the other day I was searching for Anders Breivik's profile on there to have a nosey and had the pleasure of stumbling across around 50 groups praising the guy as a Saint, and a whole bunch more trolling Norwegians over it. So yes, obviously people behave so much better with their true identities that Facebook "enforce".
No seriously, dickheads act like dickheads when you can't punch them in the face, anonymous or not.
It does not surprise me that Facebook would take such a stance, as they are a glorified data mining company.
I just hope the internet does not completely lose its wild west feeling. It is hard to not be concerned, though, as between walled gardens, paywalls, ever-more-draconian anti-piracy measures, bandwidth data caps, bandwidth throttling, multi-tiered internet, and cross-site tracking it is clear that corporations and government wants to change the web and internet as we know it. Then you have Google coming out and saying that they are banning accounts that do not use real names.
When IPv6 finally becomes mainstream and goes in to widespread use it will only get worse, in my opinion. With IPv6 every man, woman, child, dog, and toaster can have its own IP address. Not only would it be trivial to track most people by their IPv6 addresses, but as TV sets and other devices get connected it will be trivial to track and monitor the activity on these devices and tie that activity to their owners. The more tech savvy will be able to sidestep some of it if my prediction comes to pass, but the general public won't know enough or care enough to do it.
somebody get me his home address and phone number please, i might want a word with him about his anonymity at 5am.
Yeah, because people behave *so* nicely on Facebook (cf. the various groups such as "let's kill %s" or "happy birthday Mussolini").
And a lot of people are using fake names there, so it doesn't even count as evidence.
It's cute that she thinks everybody on FB uses a real name. I'll be sure to pass that along to my friend Charlie Unknown*, and many others.
*Not the actual pseudonym, I wouldn't want somebody to get reported to the bureaucrats....
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
So, people tend to say whatever they want behind "closed doors", and you have a problem with that, Randi Zuckerburg?
Fine, then you won't mind if I put a webcam in every room in your house, right? I mean after all, people tend to say AND do whatever they want behind "closed doors", and we can't possibly have any of that without the rest of the world being well aware of exactly who is doing what behind "closed doors", right?
Keep it up, Farcebook. You won't be relevant enough for people to even give a shit if you keep pulling moves like this. There's a damn good reason anonymity existed well before privacy lawsuits, Farcebook or even the internet, and it's the same reason it will continue to exist well after you're gone.
The Internet is currently a little bit like the American Wild West.
Its filled with various folk, some lawful, some lawless, and many hiding in obscurity and anonymity either for self protection, a general sense of freedom, or to escape prosecution or persecution.
It will get regulated. In the same way that the Wild West become controlled. It is just a matter of time.
Arguing about the rightness or wrongness of the loss of anonymity is roughly equivalent to complaining that our sun will eventually expand to a red giant and consume the earth.
For those of you who wish to delay it, good luck to you. Personally, I welcome our new digital overlords.
..."It's Not Going To Happen".
Even if governments managed to legislate this, what are they going to do about the thousands of open proxies around the world, which are there courtesy of clueless small to medium business who don't know the first thing about IT security?
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
This from the company who's officials are regularly quotes under demand of anonymity? Let the facebook staff be first who give up all their details online.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Internet anonymity is teaching us things about people. In the case of facebook representative, you have a person saying the things that he needs for his company to be profitable. I suggest that we do not let facebook's profits interfere with the human race growing up as a whole.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
If commercial and governmental entities keep pushing us in a direction where are forced to use our real life identity then I believe the meaning of identity will change.
Just because I happen to live in a country, have a bank account there and have a VISA card means I have a valid identity? I can even have officially my name changed. Is that the true meaning of identity?
I think it won't be long before the Coconut Islands will begin to offer identities for $50,- per month. You can get to choose your name, get a passport and a bank account. Installation fee: $75,- and renaming cost you only $25,- plus shipping charges for your new passport.
Who said you can't have multiple identities? In the internet we already had them for a long time in less official form of nicknames. Even artists have a artist identity to protect their private lives for the public. Also forbidden in the future?
If you squeeze tight enough people will run through your fingers.
'I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. I have no way of knowing if my user, Clem Kadiddlehopper is the same person as Willy Lump Lump and Bolivar Shagnasty on other sites That costs me money, money I deserve. If I can correlate the information about users across sites I can build up an even more valuable trove of information to sell. It's time for this quaint notion of privacy and an individual's right to it to go away; after all it is pre-internet thinking and we're in a new economy. It's money we're talking about, real money.'
As deep throat said, "Follow the money."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Grocery stores, malls, libraries, public parks - I see rude people everywhere. We all need our name and government ID number tattooed to the forehead, both arms, and back of the neck. Then we'll all behave better everywhere.
As a side benefit we'll be able to get targeted advertisements/marketing directed our way no matter where we are (I guess we'll need an RFID implant in addition to the tattoos)
The real reason for this of-course has nothing to do with people being pricks on the web. The real reason for this is the bottom line of FB, which would improve greatly if they could have everybody on file, with their real names, addresses, S/Ns, birth dates, certificates (long form, right?), etc.
They want you to be a better product for their customers - advertisers. What better way of doing this if not by making sure everybody is known exactly for who they are, where they live, where they work, what they do, where they shop, how much they make, what their family situation is, medical data, what their future plans are, etc.etc.etc.
Of-course if you provide FB with this sort of information, FB gains enormous power over your lives, they become more powerful than you could ever imagine, product #241125
You can't handle the truth.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If anonymity in public fora was an option in 1935 Nazi Germany, maybe more people would have spoken out against the hate for Jews. Perhaps the ZuckerBuRgS should rethink their position.
Judging by a lot of online forums I've been on maybe a lot more would have spoken out for it!
Actually, I find that whenever someone is telling you to give up your rights for your own good, it's not really safety they have in mind. Usually they're just trying to shaft you somehow, but they can't just say "bend over and squeal like a pig, I'm gonna make big money out of shafting you peons." So they have to pack it in some idiocy about how it's for your own good.
Applies to everything from 10'th century warlords promising you protection if you just put your thumbprint here and sell yourself into serfdom, to politicians, to the likes of Zuckerburg.
In his case, it's not even hard to see why. I mean, really, you could summarize the summary as "Guy who gets his money by selling your data to marketers, says your right to privacy has got to go. Reaches for the standard 'it's to protect you from other pricks' canned excuse. Film at 11." Well, whop-de-do. Big surprise that he wants that, eh?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Dear Facebook:
Fuck off.
Sincerely,
Sparkles the wonder hamster
If I go into a store and buy an item and pay cash... I'm anonymous. If I call the crimestoppers hotline, I can remain anonymous. If I report an ethics violation at work, I can remain anonymous. If I speak to the press, I can remain anonymous... If I'm sitting in my easy chair eating cheetos, I am anonymous. I can yell at the TV and remain anonymous. *I* don't have to reveal shit to anyone I don't want to (probably why I don't use facebook...)
Anonymity isn't about civility. There is no civility when people use their real names either. I guess dear ol' Randi never reads Facebook... there's enough vile and caustic speech when people use their real names to make the "anonymity must go" crowd's arguments moot.
How many "John Smith"s or "Mohammed Khan"s are there in the world?
Just signing on to FB with the name your parents gave you doesn't uniquely identify you. In fact you couldn't distinguish if "Susan Jones 55" was the same physical person as "Imran Bin Laden 99" no matter how many tests you put in place - short of checking a notarised copy of his/her/its DNA, passport or state-issued photo identity card.
So the whole thing is not only unenforceable, but will lead the gullible and net-illiterate (or just too trusting) to assume that because they are communicating with someone else with a "real name" that they actually know something about that person and could pick them out of an internet crowd. The mistakes, crimes and cons that will follow will make todays anarchy seem like a beehive so far as ordered and controlled behaviour goes.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
In a perfect world, everybody is entitled for their opinion... and everybody else (including the authorities) have to listen to them with an open attitude, regardless how mellifluous or harsh it is.Truth is.. we are in an *imperfect world*. Expressing an unpopular opinion could most often put you in a compromising position. And if you do it with your identity out in the wild.. you may consider writing your last will ASAP.
On the other hand, a proliferation of discrimination is imminent with such a move. As in, if lets say I choose my real name as my slashdot ID. You could easily guess which part of the world or even which country I am from. Once those details are in the wild, no longer there is level playing field on the Internet, in terms of expressing your ideas. Recently I moved to a country in the east looking for an employment. I hardly get interviews here, even with a graduate certificate, simply because my name is good enough to identify where I am from. AFAIK, most academic publication houses remove author/institution details prior to sending papers out to reviewers, just to avoid such discrimination.
Does it mean that we are going to use the government to collectively steal the natives land, and then murder the ones that dare to resist? I mean in the Wild West. there were only a handful of truly dangerous individual outlaws, far fewer than exist at present. Hell the most dangerous sociopaths in the west wore government badges or uniforms, same as today. And similar to today, their acts were done by government in the name of a corporate entity.
Randi Zuckerberg is a f***ing toon. Putting everything on the internet makes you the most prone dumba** for identity theft. Post your birthdate (usually a security question), post your hometown (also a security question), oh and link your family while you're at it (ALSO a security question). Why not just say who your favorite superhero is... oh did I mention... that's a security question too. Why not post your phone number and everything else...
He's a f***ing numbnut who got lucky. That's it. Other than that he's got no common sense or intuition.
mod this coward parent poster up !
if "they" really want to find me "they" can and "they" will - nobody else needs my real name to do anything unless I want them to.
Real names zealots have been around since UUnet days and their sky hasn't fallen into the mayhem and chaos they proselytize however I'd be willing to bet that Anders Breivik posted using his real name on facebook. Sorta proves the point don't it.
Alternatively Facebook could go away...
Rayne Zuckerberg said:
I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.
Fuck you, you and your slightly less retarded brother, with a wrench rammed between your assholes.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Speaking as someone whose significant other has a psychotic ex-boyfriend, what Randi is suggesting would mean people in her position would either have to take the chance that their knife wielding ex's stalk their online presence and maybe eventually turn up at their door, or that they can't use the internet.
The fundamental problem with the idea that you have to be a real person online is that it brings all the 'real world' problems with it, and all these bright sparks never seem to address these issues.
What of Publius?
BZuck is not alone, many people confound politeness (civil discourse, minimal insults, etc) with the quality of the discussion. They seem to say, if you cannot say it politely, it should not be said at all. Or worse, if you can't be civil, you must shut up.
This unstated warrent is entirely wrong -- it confuses style for content. Perhaps because the believers are incapable of evaluating content.
Fundamentally, communication is about teaching and learning. This is necessarily somewhat uncomfortable as old ideas (generally) have to be abandoned or at least modified by the new message. Often politeness helps this transition, but not always. Some people cannot be polite, others choose not to. Silencing them by banning anonymity is to impose on everyone the shallow value of style-over-content.
This is not necessary, hence is meddling. Rather dictatorial which BZuck can be for Facebook, but not elsewhere. People can choose what to read when they open a book, newspaper, blog or email. Filtering is easy and a necessary skill. But many are those who would impose their values upon others.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Facebook are a bunch of privacy stealing shitheads. Their motivation isn't sanguine. Its about unhooking private information - as much as they can, and leveraging it to benefit themselves. Companies who do this need to be brought to book. They should have no right to start dictating to everyone else that things go away just because they think its a good idea.
They can off course, choose to run their system how they wish, but they can shut up about anything outside.
Its really a high time that companies and individuals were remineded that information is damaging, and its misuse, over-release- and selling of isn't their ownership. And they don't have some magical right to it. And further, when their zealous activities equate to any punitive losses to the people, these companies need to have massive penalties as a reminder that this is not agame.
We`re all equal
I detest facebook exactly for this reason, i have no privacy left now, all my friends know who all my friends are, and if i say something to someone, others can read it...it makes total sense, and i think they could even go further and lift even more privacy off facebook, this way when it becomes a standard in the near future...no one will be able to steal your identity, especially if your bank has your facebook account attached to it, in terms of validating who you are....when you open a bank account, you associate your facebook account, this will enforce identity validation. the person might see a picture of your facebook page appear on her screen when you go in to try and take out 20,000$ from your bank account...and when she sees the face is not the same, which at this point becomes harder to do if you add twitter and myspace and all the others....it becomes like a fort knox equivalent, where no one will even try it due to an already established premise that it is impenetrable.
Less theft = less bank loss.... hoepfully = less bank charges.
That is all.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
They are then sentenced to pulish a revocation.
That is something to be called upon as the newspaper is considered more credible than any anonymous poster in a forum.
oh gosh what a pile of bullshit.
Apparently, all these youngsters have no idea what a real online community looks like. Back in the BBS days, everyone had a "handle". Since we rarely changed them, it was closer to pseudonymity than anonymity, but it served a purpose.
That's what these piles of garbage who've gotten filthy rich over breaking other people's privacy and then telling the world that's the new black don't get: Purpose of seperation.
I have a couple hobbies where I change identity. In LARP or online gaming, I'm known under a different name than my family knows me as. And while I go as "Tom" in various social circles, they often do not overlap. The same three characters do not express the same identity.
I would, in fact, prefer to have several linked accounts on Facebook, Google+, etc. - because what I post, write or comment as the "Tom" of my own online games isn't all that interesting to my real-world friends. And vice-versa, the players of my games probably don't care what I'm doing this evening. Most of them don't even understand the postings I make in my native language.
This is not even about hiding anything. It's about being better than blarring everything about you on broadcast, whether or not anyone cares.
Maybe you have to be a celebrity like Mark to lose touch with this basic reality: That your life is seperated into various roles you play. Heck, that's sociology 101. Few things about our social lives are as fundamental as that. So how can a social network ignore basic facts about what it means to be social?
There's also some information theory 101: Too much information becomes indistinguishable from noise. If our connection is because we share some online hobby, then I usually don't care about your personal life because it has no impact on me. I don't care where you go this evening because I couldn't join you there anyways, you're hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from me.
And even if you're my friend, I don't give a flying fuck about your latest accomplishment in FarmVille!
Basically, what social networks lack to be actually social instead of just being the most simple and primitive kind of network imaginable is the ability to classify "friends". Google+ has a good start with its circles, but that's one baby step up from Facebooks unbelievably stupid binary friendship concept.
Twenty years from now, we'll look at Facebook the way we look at hand-copied bibles today, shaking our heads in disbelief that people went to all that effort for so little gain.
And the fact that you simply aren't the same person to different people is one of the things that will change in those social networks, because it's a fact of human nature and human nature doesn't adapt to toys, it forces the toys to adapt or changes them as soon as a better one comes around.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Whether or not they would act any "better" would depend on the person (as well as your definition of the word "good"). I don't care if someone hurt your feelings over the internet. I think it's far more entertaining for it to be relatively anonymous as it is now.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
That Facebook executive said she thinks the internet would be better off without anonymity. Facebook's revenues depend on less anonymity. The motivation behind her quote is profit driven, not out of any drive for a better world.
. . . become completely open and honest in everything they say and do, then it will be time for the rest of us, too.
I see somebody hasn't been to Lamebook.com yet.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
For a long while I had a *length* modifier and a brevity penalty.
Except for a few gems, all the troll posts were really short, and all the good comments were longer than some 17 words.
Meanwhile it would be funny to put these marketing types in court and make them swear under perjury that their position is (all that truthy stuff).
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Randi doesn't realize that if you are in a public forum of any type and are identifiable then you are liable to get fired for saying anything that isn't perfectly aligned with the corporation you work for. can they fire for your political views? you would be naive to think they cant get away with it.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
be honest, your settings, do they penalize Anonymous Cowards in how visible their posts are? Because you don't want to read just any anonymous post?
The best game servers require authentication, even to the point of only allowing people signed up to a small group for detailed identification. Would you accept a friend invite from anonymous? Read email that didn't come from a known source?
We all constantly insist that everyone identifies themselves to us before we are willing to interact with us.
So okay, not all those identities are linked to "real" identities, allthough the person known on slashdot as SmallFurryCreature can be found in other places with the same IDENTIFIER. Since my posts are linked to the IDENTIFICATION, they create a history based on which my posts get an extra mod point because I am so well known.
LinkedIn is perhaps the best know social site with real personalties. It is only useful because people are supposed to be who they are. If you create a fake profile on this and you get a job offer, don't count on getting it if you then confess you lied and you are really someone else. That wouldn't make you very trustworthy.
Even "pirates" do it, want to know if you trust a torrent? Look for a skull on thepiratebay.
Really, I find it so amazing when people say they want anoninimty from a logged in account.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
people can realize that some people behave that way and learn to ignore it. There are a lot of good uses for anonymity, and throwing them all out because of a few jackholes is wrong and stupid.
What we have here is some douche who hasn't considered the ramifications and/or value to society anonymity brings. Just sees some people being idiots and think s it all must go.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
F. U.
'nuff said.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Schools nowadays deal with a lot of cyber bullying and the like. These students/teachers know who the poster is and who the intended target is in most cases. So there is no anonymity there and people still act like jerks.
I think in reality it is not being anonymous that leads people to be jerks, it is the knowledge that they have no consequences for their actions. The internet seems to be a fine line between no consequences for being a jerk and massive overkill if you piss off someone with the appropriate technical skills (or a stalker I suppose).
Just because anonymous people are jerks does not mean that being a jerk is caused by being anonymous. So really all you are going to do is make it easier to harass people on the internet without really weeding out the people being jerks. So not only is this solution infringing on a lot of rights, real and perceived, it wouldn't even accomplish anything.
I personally think anonymity brings out the best in people. Or at least, brings out their honest opinions.
The internet never hesitates to tell you that those jeans do, in fact, make your butt look big.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
So, basically, you have been living under a rock the last 2 years?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This kind of imperialistic attitude is just one of MANY reasons why I'm not on facebook. Hey Zuck, you suck!!!!
Be More, Be Manly, The Manly Geek Ubergeek Extraordinaire Blogger: www.manlygeek.com/blog Podcaster: podcast.man
I understand that allowing anonymity undermines the commoditization of user lists interfering with Facebook's (and others) plans. Tough. My identity is my property and if you want it, you'll have to pay me. Each web site has its own business model. Some (like Slashdot's) allow for anonymity until a user decides to follow a link and buy a product. They get their pennies from that click, whether its from AC or PPH. Facebook wants to aggregate data on user behavior and sell that for a premium. And the more identity data they can deliver to their customers, (The advertisers. Users are just property.) the more cash they can get. Fine. But that's only good within the Facebook world. Trying to mine the entire Internet is the equivalent of digging for gold on other people's claims.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's easy to talk a pile of trash when you aren't accountable for your blathering. Doing away with anonymity adds at least SOME accountability to your online life.
So let me get this straight... If we remove anonymity, we potentially put the life of people fighting for freedom in Egypt, Iran, even China at risk. And what do we gain? Aww, now no one will offend your delicate sensibilities with their trash talking?
Does NOT seem like a fair trade. Toughen up, buttercup, and realize that the anonymity that's making your life a TINY bit uncomfortable is essential for the lives of others.
I wont take my advice from some douchebag marketing director that is only in the job because of his last name, while I might add working at a vapor fad company that will cease to matter any given time now
and hey douchebag, you know how hard it is to make a fake facebook account, none at all, you need a photo (LIKE OMG where am I going to get that) and some bullshit name. Sorry to disappoint but that profile with Pamela Anderson's picture and the name Hard M. Knockers aint fucking real genius, you might know this if you earned your position in life instead of taking someones job
First I'll get the venom out of me, the fat cow should shut the fuck up.
Second, all that is really desired here is attach the face, the data, to the real name, this would make Facebook the single largest name and face database in the World (that I know of)
I will admit I enjoy "conspiracy theories" but with facial recognition what it is, DARPA Developing Video Parser, Police To Begin iPhone Iris Scans I can't help feel we are all being "herded", tagged and delivered and Facebook is one of the corrals.
Why would Goldman Sachs want to value Facebook at 50 billion?
Just think of what you can do with all that information and no restrictions, because the person freely gave the information to you.
People used to fret that the would be implanted with an RFID tag or "The Mark of The Beast", but the reality is no one can live without their phones, and with iris scanning and facial recognition software, why they don't need to tag you.....you tagged yourself.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Gee, what are the chances that a MARKETING director would want to get rid of online anonymity - of course she does, it's much easier to market to someone when you know who they are and can tie together their activity throughout the internet and the real world. Anonymity makes this harder.
hearing this from the company the united states champions as offering an outlet for democratic revolution.
lest we forget: Facebook is not a service, it is a consumer; the user of facebook is the product therein.
Good people go to bed earlier.
when nobody acted like jerks and nobody ever said anything mean to anyone nor said or did anything purely for the purpose of inciting anger or violence. Take away annonymity and I suspect you'd see some changes but no overall reduction in internet hostility. Are there really people out there who have never encountered immensely irritating people in person? Jerks also tend to stand out, and the internet intensifies that not via annonymity but by the simple fact that it lets you act on your impulses (near instant communication) and your postings are available worldwide.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
And if people aren't elite enough to say what they want, then they risk being blacklisted.
Sounds like "anonymity on the Internet has to go away" for his business model to work. Blech.
People who fight for the right to be anonymous are not just trying to say insulting and threatening things anonymously. They are also trying to keep people from giving their name, address, phone number, and pictures to anybody who asks. I think this guy is deliberately confusing the two situations. He's just like those people who say it's horrible for you to know what your government is doing because that makes it impossible for the government to keep you safe.
Don't be fooled by this call for accountability. Ethical posturing from the slimebags at Facebook is a laughable farce.
This is all about the Facebook business model, which is founded on SELLING YOU OUT. The radical expansion of their revenues will come as they encourage efforts to abolish not merely anonymity - but privacy itself.
It's not anonymity that needs to disappear from the Internet, but Facebook, which in itself presents a far greater evil and threat to individual rights and well being than does the entire aggregation of anonymous expressions...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
One can define accountability like that in a tome with a Forward, an Introduction, 50 pages of End Notes, and an Index that doesn't suck; an engaged reader will grant your linguistic conceit in the brief and bright mental interludes between the penumbra of naps and heavy meals.
In the fray of online discourse--in the greasy orange penumbra between Cheetos from the monkey-fist Pez dispenser--the word is freighted with sober reflection by rule-of-law abiding power brokers; your average Cheeto-chomper will hearken back to the gold star he received from his second grade teacher after mastering "i before e" and presume some kind of glowing auspice; or, if less vested in clean living, his intestines will quail over creative omissions in his annual gold-filling divulgence.
In America, you can believe in Elvis alien abduction, crop circles, biblical creationism, or worst of all, scientific creationism and no one posts your mug shot on the internet in galleries of eternal shame to shake you down. What is accountability, anyway?
A better word choice would have been repercussions: accountability as applied to any isolated sound bite. Do you think that for having everything you've ever said housed under a single roof (insert payment card here), public discourse would become less of a carnival duck shoot?
Be yourself and speak your mind today, though it contradict all you have said before.
~ ~ ~ Elbert Hubbard
The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
~ ~ ~ Oscar Wilde
People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'.
~ ~ ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.
~ ~ ~ George Bernard Shaw
Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.
~ ~ ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do I contradict myself? / Very well then / I contradict myself / I am large, I contain multitudes.
~ ~ ~ Walt Whitman
From a Wikipedia editor of Irish descent:
IRL many wish to avoid being lumped in with Walt Whitman; nearly everyone wishes to avoid becoming known for making quips about the Irish. Yes, I'm going to abandon the cover of intelligent thought and write like that Wikipedia guy on my public blog.
This reminds me of the early nineties, when Prodigy went to censor newsgroup names. Those naughty names included such rude things as the newsgroups for breast cancer survivors, and survivors of child abuse.
But no, let's get everyone's real name out there, if they are looking to find a community who understands to talk to....
Maybe facebook should go away.
mark
She advocates no anonymity on the Internet? How about starting by posting online all YOUR contact info like phone number, home address, etc, Randi? I'm sure guys somewhere would be more than GLAD to show you why no anonymity on the Internet might be a problem... Some would say she's a dumb broad, but that's obviously NOT the case. She's just parroting her brother's stupid money-grubbing ideas.
It would've been much funnier if you posted this AC. Now, I have to assume that you're serious.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
There's one fundamental thing I don't get... don't you *choose* who you interact with on Facebook? If you don't like what they say why can't you just unfriend them? Or not friend them in the first place?
Zuckerburg isn't anonymous at all and he behaves like a prick all the time.
really?!!!
Randi Zuckerburg
sounds absolutely filthy
Actually, "Randi Zuckerburg" is a better porn star name than what you get when you enter "Randi Zuckerburg" into the porn star name generator.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Facebook must go away. -Online anonymous
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
This is not about wanting to have different identities, or to be able to be a dick online. It's about freedom itself.
Without anonymity you don't have the freedom to say what is right if it goes against society's current notions of morality. If you do, you'll be silenced and punished (either by the authorities or society at large) for stepping out of line. I want to live in a world where people have true freedom of speech, and that world cannot exist without anonymity.
If anonymity weren't a foundation of freedom of speech there would be no such thing as a witness protection program. You need to be able to say things with freedom from repercussion for any social or scientific progress to be made. You won't always be right, but you'll never know if you had to keep it held inside until the world was ready to hear whatever it was that you wanted to say.
There are huge numbers of different places one can hang out on the internet and anyone can choose to limit themselves to non anonymous internet places: people can choose to be on Facebook or Google+ and forget about Slashdot.
Hell, I don't even feel like it's a good idea for me to say I'm an atheist. I don't live under an oppressive regime. I am an American computer programmer living in a politically balanced area. But I don't want any Tom Dick or Harry to be able to Google me and learn everything there is to know about me and everything that I post on the internet. I don't want Google keeping track of the fact that I did a search on herpes (which may lead some people to think I actually have herpes), or what kind of porn I like to look at. Because that information leaks out sooner or later. My ex girlfriend who is a facebook friend has a facebook app that logs IP addresses of people who look at her profile. She thinks I look at her profile too much...which I don't. I can't even click on her profile without her monitoring my activity and misinterpreting my actions as "pining for her". So, the things I click on are logged. It's to the point where our activities online will become more visible to everyone than in the real world. In the real world I could go to the public library and read a sympathetic magazine article about Muslim terrorists without creating an electronic trail that puts me on a bloody watch list. In the real world I don't have to worry about people evaluating every action I make in order to determine if I'm behaving normally or not. I can sit around with a group of friends and I can say something embarrassing and everyone will forget about it after a while. If I say it online, it lasts forever, and everyone in the world with a browser can see it. I'll keep my anonymity thank you very much.
Since it seems to be coming down to a binary choice (anonymity vs assholes) I would rather have to put up with the anonymous assholes than have people remain silent for fear of offending someone above them in the future.
But first, tell us where you live and give us your credit card numbers. Oh; and strip and remain naked.
Whoa, chill out. Facebook is threatening noone who isn't signing up voluntarily.
And people who visit pages with Facebook tags. And people who send you Facebook links...
Holy crap, PANIC!
John
This guy wants your info so he can profit off you. He will sell it to anyone who will pay. Fuck him. Fuck Facebook. Fuck Weibo. Long live anonymity!
'I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.' Couldn't have said it better. Look what being anonymous has done to the internet - viruses, trojans, spam, black hat hackers, etc. etc. People have developed tools of destruction all while being anonymous. We then pay then pay tons of money to anti-virus companies for software to protect ourselves from the viruses/trojans/spam of unknown authors. Hackers like LulzSec can taunt the world anonymously via Twitter on how they hacked tons of websites and made it look easy. And you know what? It works. FBI can barely touch them. Being anonymous has been abused for far too long and it's time for a change.
Have you sifted through YourOpenBook? People still make racist comments with their name attached and post illegal drug photos and Like porn videos.
would love to have worked with this guy during the 2009 uprising. He has a point, those twitter revolutionaries will behave "better" ("better" as defined by the old guard) would they have used their real names.
would requiring real names make people behave or would it only make the data collected more valuable for sites like facebook???
I don't shout my name and wear it on my shirt everywhere I go IRL, neither do I let people track where I go and where I came from, why should I do any of this crap online?
Twinstiq, game news
Sounds to me like Facebook is following in Google+'s footsteps rather closely, regarding anonymity. This will be interesting to watch.
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
And pages with UNPRESSED "Like buttons" :-)
And the fact that they are pressing for legislation and regulation to enforce this, if you are or are not a Facebook user.
I miss RocketMail, AltaVista and DejaNews.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"After attending the Bilderberg conference in Switzerland in June, Facebook’s marketing director, Randi Zuckerberg, announced that she had solved the cyberbullying issue: Prohibit anonymous Internet activity." I see the name Bilderberg come up a lot when reading about the new world order. Aww so her comments make sense now in light of where she was speaking.
---- GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
It doesn't matter if you do not click those like buttons. The scripts are loaded from Facebook servers and they're pretty much like Google Analytics. They can track you between websites and with your real name too.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
I can, but I don't want to post as AC. I am not scared because I see their game. Time almost up and we shall be ready to watch THEIR endgame.
Twitter: @dainsanefh
I don't think Ben would believe that surrendering your liberty to an oligarchy of corporations to buy a little temporary safety is acceptable either.
While it's certainly true that the first amendment doesn't restrict corporations from violating the same rights the government would not be permitted to do. You have a right to privacy, but corporations can gather any amount of information about you and nobody can legally stop them. This doesn't mean that giving away your freedom to corporations for the sake of temporary safety is suddenly acceptable.
I mean seriously you think Jack-Booted thugs are something we shouldn't worry about if their Jack-boots have corporate logos on them?
I'm well aware of the GIFT qua Penny Arcade and it's likely true. But, to suppose that Ben's quote only works in the context of government is a little naive.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
However, we do need a better solution to online identity.
1. You must be allowed to have multiple online identities
2. These identities could have your real name or could be a pseudonym, that is irrelevant
3. Must be easy to plug in to existing systems (PAM-based module perhaps?)
OpenID is solving some of these problems, but is much too clunky and insecure. For one thing it's much suspectible to reverse DNS. XMPP is a better choice since address spoofing is much harder (but not impossible) and can easily be integrated to your IM client, trouble is you can't easily integrate it into the web like OpenID. It's possible even better protocols exist for this purpose but OpenID and XMPP are the most promising I've seen right now.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
'Zaclty my point.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
between individuals and large organizations. I'll be for abolishing anonymity of individuals when we outlaw all secrecy in government and industry. Yes, even military. Yes, even "trade secrets". You want transparency, start there.
Yay Ghostery and NoScript!
John
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