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Are 'Real Names' Policies an Abuse of Power?
telekon writes "Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd argues in this article that 'The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power.' This comes in the wake of criticism aimed at Facebook and Google for their stance on anonymity and pseudonymity. A related article from the Atlantic discusses how revolutionary the real name requirement really is."
Dont use Facebook or Google+.
Plenty of other methods of communication.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Google is not obligated to join you on whatever your crusade is, no matter how worthy. There are real plusses and minuses to anonymity, and it is reasonable for a social network operator to either allow or disallow pseudonymity.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
On a long enough time line, EVERY ONE has something to hide.
That includes the high and mighty. Actually, it's probably even more true for the high and mighty.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
i am not putting my real name & address or photo on any social networking website, because i know there are some people out there that would milk it for all its worth as far as identity theft or blackmail or just plain meanness to make me look bad,
(besides i do a good enough job of making myself look bad and i dont want any help from anyone else)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
On the other hand, there are MANY MANY MORE reasons to not use real names.
The question is, which is the bigger market size? Which do people want? From what I can tell, the far majority of people do not want to use real names.
Frankly, if you want to make a forum safe for kids, then yes, real names would be appropriate. But I am not a child. I can take an insult. My privacy and protection is far more important to me, and to most people.
The idea to use real names for a general forum for use by everyone is an insane idea. Companies and corporations want it, people don't. Build a website based on what the users want, not the corporations, governments. etc.
I would love to use Google+ - if they let me keep my privacy. I won't use it as is.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
So was Publius a troll, fraud, or a spammer? What about George Orwell? What about Mark Twain?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Then you don't go posting about it online...
Free speech is the ability for you state your beliefs without having to worry about the government jailing you for saying it. Nothing about doing it anonymously. Free Speech is something to be valued and not used anonymously. If you are going to stand out and say something important then you should do it so people know who you are, and realize that even in a place of Free Speech there is risks.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Widespread requirements by social media to give one's "real name" are, on the surface, only harmful to those who would prefer to remain anonymous but would rather give up anonymity than the utility of these sites.
One may simply say "if you want to remain anonymous don't give up your information. There's no one forcing you to use these sites" But there's a side-effect of this requirement.
Like it or not "what a lot of people do" always defines what is okay and good and normal. to most people. It makes it much easier to pass laws that forbid anonymity in many areas offline and on. So even though I don't use facebook, google plus, or other such services specifically because I prefer to remain anonymous, this "real name" crap is indirectly harming me.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
When facebook was still .edu only and decided to open up, one of the details I learned (wasn't on it) was that most people use their real name. I thought "oh there's no way that will fly once they open up", but they had already achieved a certain critical mass where new sign ups just figured that's the way it works, and that's the way it is, so they went along with it. I could almost see it in the .edu only context, but it still astounds me to this day that relatives of mine who will bitch mercilessly about the man trying to get over on them and whatnot will post their whole life up for the world to see under their real name. Nothing GOOD ever happens from people finding you by your name, it's usually something crappy. Like if you've got a really popular online persona and you apply for a job, you can point to sourceforge or whatever and take credit for the good. But when has an HR person ever went scrounging for an applicant's real name, found pics of them drunk and pissing off a bridge, and given them the job because of it. The disconnect from people who seem like they should care a lot, according to their own standards, is striking.
It offers no value to users.
This is demonstrably false. You can say that pseudonymity has great value. You can say that to you, it has vastly more value than "real names". However, to say that real names offer to value to users, whose goal is to connect primarily with people they know in real life, is either ignorant or defiantly stupid.
My other sig is clever.
The author got a lot right in this article. The thing about using real identities is the effects are asymmetrical, it's not some egalitarian system that always improves discourse. The people in positions of power, authority, privilege, etc. are the ones who determine what is and isn't acceptable to begin with, so obviously they have nothing to lose by being identified. When we say "civility" we mean don't really mean "civility" according to everyone, just according to whoever defines the status quo. There's a reason Facebook is now mostly parents posting baby pictures and employers doing corporate promotions, that's all its useful for when everyone can see it and everyone can identify everyone else who uses it.
What I call someone, what they call themselves, and their real identity are three different things. Why force them to be the same?
A) if Google/Facebook only grant accounts (or verified account status, as others have suggested) to people who disclose their personal identity... that's the company's choice. It certainly makes me more likely to use their service (for the obvious spam/troll prevention reasons).
B) but there's no reason they need to publish that information for anyone else. They could then let my friend Robert Snee sign up for an account, choose his public name to be "Dread Pirate Snee" and then, most importantly, let me override his name and avatar with one of my own choice... probably Bob Snee with a picture of something other than his newborn baby.
C) And if Rob wants to use a total psueodonym but still accept his friend request/add him to a circle... he'll need to tell me in private "who he is" and prove it to me. Possibly by *choosing* to reveal his google/FB-verified real-identity. If he doesn't, I'm not going to let him into my friends/circles... which is the difference between social network-based sites and open communication tools like email/forums which have global acceptance for historical/practical reasons.
G
I'm reminded of the "Real Names" policies on many of the BBSes (especially the early IBM PC-based ones) of the pre-Internet era. It wasn't about any real advantage, percieved or not, with using real names in online discorse.
It was solely about a petty dictator and his fiefdom, and maintaining some sense of "control."
I now view Facebook and Google with the same pity and indignation as I viewed the dickish SysOps of the pre-Internet era, who were more worried about somebody stepping on their dick than building a community. Congratulations.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Most of you are too young to remember, but once upon a time there were no pseudonyms on the Internet. All schools, companies, and organizations on the Internet voluntarily adhered to a policy where each user's online identity was easily linked to their real world identity. It was staunchly enforced by admins who believed the net would fall apart into a morass of misbehavior if people were allowed to post anonymously.
There were a few people running their own servers who bucked the trend, but it wasn't until AOL joined USENET that pseudonyms became a fact of life. AOL allowed each account to have up to 5 usernames, to facilitate families sharing a single AOL account. Obviously these extra usernames were quickly taken up by people wishing to post things anonymously online, which was good for free speech. But not surprisingly, spam was invented shortly thereafter.
So it's actually anonymity which is the "recent artifact". All that's happening now is that the pendulum is starting to swing the other way as netizens struggle to figure out the best balance between real names and pseudonyms.
I've got a lot of things to hide, only they are not illegal.
Wrong, free speech has to have it inherently built in to allow for anonymous free speech. To go elsewhere is just as the article states (And I am NO fan of Micro$oft propaganda articles or studies) but in this case I think she is correct in that it is an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people
Two quick examples of U.S. law the link anonymous speech directly to the Constitution Right to Free Speech that I found are "Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960), the Court struck down a Los Angeles city ordinance that made it a crime to distribute anonymous pamphlets. In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995), the Court struck down an Ohio statute that made it a crime to distribute anonymous campaign literature."
If you half an open mind, you might also want to check out the EFF site and try to look at it from another point of view. https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity
Anonymity/pseudonimity is not purely for Trolls and F**wads.
Wherever you go... There you are. B.B.
I use http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
Don't forget George Eliot. That man could write!
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
they may be on FB specifically to catch the moron demographic
You might be right, Brawndo is on Facebook.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Nice troll, "Styopa". If anonymity is an information age commodity, you must extend the definition of the information age into the 18th Century
Or are you really that ignorant of political history? It would be astounding if your obtuseness were genuine.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
This is the same line of reasoning that the police use when they try to convince you to let them search your person or property without probable cause. All regimes are potentially repressive and one does not need to be an "activist" to legitimately seek to minimize exposure.
First of all, ket's kill this nonsense idea about businesses and their private property rights. Inside your own private home, you can implement whatever racist, sexist, discriminatory policies you like.
Once you form a corporation and open to the public for business, you agree to play by different rules. When you file a corporate charter, you make the explicit black-letter deal that in exchange for limited liability and tax considerations, you are going to serve the public good. Just as it's time we put an end to cops claiming "privacy" rights in the course of performing their duties, and it's time we put an end to business's claiming they have "private property" rights in the course of their business. You've already agreed you're not a "private person" when you made the deal for a corpoate charter.
You can absolutely say "I don't want any minorities in my home." You absolutely can NOT say "I don't want any minorities in my business."
Now, my country, the USA, has certain values that stem from our history. We don't like kings, we don't like searches except under extreme circumstances, we believe you should be free to speak your mind or pray to any god you choose.
Yeah, it was hard to type that with a straight face.
Any way, just in case you were educated in Texas, here's something you should know. The American Revolution was kickstarted by men working under psuedonyms. Our most beloved author, Samuel Clemens, worked under a psuedonym. (You Texas kids, go ahead and google it. I'll wait.) Our most beloved badass actor, Marion Morrison, worked under a psuedonym (Everyone under 40, go ahead and google it.).
We like psuedonyms in this country, because as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, speech isn't free if expressing an unpopular opinion costs you your livelihood -- Google "Red Scare Fifties" for more on that.
Google may not be obligated to join any crusades, by they are obliged to respect the basic mores that make modern democracies possible.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Hahaha finally found you, you will pay, bastard!