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Facebook Can Keep Real Name Policy, German Court Rules
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook can stick with its real name policy in Germany, and doesn't have to allow nicknames on its platform for now. The regulator that ordered Facebook to change its policy based its orders on inapplicable German law, a German court ruled."
There are so many fake accounts on Facebook, how will the real name policy be enforced? You can name yourself anything you want and get away with it. That is what I have noticed anyway.
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
According to facebook I live in the Andromeda Galaxy and commute to work to work via hyper-slipspace shower curtain technology to work as a systems analyst for Aperture Science Laboratories.
Oh, and my chat history will reveal that I'm planning to build a giant deathray.
Who here knows what my "human legal name" is? Everyone online knows me by either my Norwegian nickname (Skaperen) or my Swedish nickname (Skapare). There's no point in getting on Facebook at all unless I use these names. Well, OK, I do have a couple other nicknames.
I don't think a law should force them to accept nicknames. This should happen when Mark quits being stupid.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I want to use the name I use online so people WILL know who I am. This is not anonymity ... people have figured out my "human world" identity. The name "Skapare" is my SOCIAL identity. Facebook is a SOCIAL site. So they should WANT me to use my social identity.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I am autistic. I have a job, and some people at my workplace very quickly identified that I was autistic. But some apparently haven't.
Online, I can anonymously post about issues in my life, things that I've done that I now understand would cause problems or confusion for other people, et cetera. With sites having "real name" policies, that is immediately lost. If I had to use my real name, there are so many things I could not disclose, because of the certainty of discrimination. If people knew some of the things which I've done they might think that I was a risk to myself, and with the last mass shooter supposedly being autistic, if people knew that I was autistic they might think that I was a risk to others. I am not; I am actually about the least violent person I've ever met.
I don't use Facebook, but there is no way that real name policies are helpful. They are very harmful. I am not the only person who has such reasons to want to maintain anonymity. And even though I know that certain information can immediately be looked up(things like IP addresses or relative locations), the internet does grant some anonymity. It's not that I am a criminal; I haven't done anything wrong. It's that I am someone who has been victimized, and I don't want to be further victimized. Insisting that if I wish to maintain anonymity I should avoid social sites is similar to the way I was ostracized when I attempted socialization when I was younger.
to snitch all your stuff there goes like this:
- please prove your legal identity within 8 days
- account closed, no more access nor ownership
And yet I'm going to assume that CajunArson is not your real name. You frankly dont seem to understand what the word "privacy" means since none of the items you list equate to being "good for privacy".
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Don't confuse lack of authentication with privacy, they ain't the same thing.
The vast majority of people don't give a flying fuck about whether or not someone can "theoretically" ID them. I harbor no delusions that, with Slashdot's and my ISP's cooperation, a suitably-empowered government agency could easily ID me. I've certainly said enough about myself on here to confirm even a "close enough" guess.
Most people just care that when their future employer googles their name, their postings on MyLittleFilly.xxx don't go to the top of the list.
You want real online privacy? Don't use Facebook.
All of the above aside - This!
I have privacy. If I used Facebook, they wouldn't know my real name, ip, or even what browser I really use. Well, I'm not an idiot, so I don't use Facebook, but still.
Wrong! You THINK they wouldn't know your real name, ip, etc. I think that was the main point OP was trying to make.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
As the grandparent post said, the real name policy is not the issue here though. Facebook is simply not the place for anonymous or private chatter. It's a site that should at all times, real name policy or not, be treated as a massive public forum. Not using Facebook is absolutely a solution, and even if you DO you use Facebook, you should stay aware that everything on it may as well be public information.
So in that sense it's not the place to post about issues in your life.
There's other, anonymous and/or private places for that.
Google+, Twitter, and Facebook, real names or not, are not the best places for anonymous or private discussion. As long as people keep that in mind and remember it, then the whole world is a safer place.
There are so many people breaking the law on my street, how will the insert strange and/or unreasonable law be enforced? You can do anything you want if you are smart, and get away with it. That is what I have noticed anyway.
Fixed that for you. Just for the record, you have broken more laws than mitzvots. Doesn't make them any less ridiculous.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
The flaw in your argument is this: There will always be a whole bunch of inexperienced people on the internet, and they shouldn't be penalized permanently just to teach them a lesson (you think 10 years from now, everybody will know about privacy? What about the kids who are born today, and will be surfing the net 10 years from now? They sure won't know).
I am inclined to think that facebook is not the right tool for communicating about things you don't want people to associate with you.
That said, I also note that I overall get much better results being "out" about being autistic than I did when people didn't know. (Of course, I didn't know either for most of that time.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
This is clearly the case for Google+ and Facebook. Twitter seems to allow online-only "avatar" registrations as long as you have an email address (and I have billions and billions of those). I have more than one twitter account.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Maybe you are on, or could join, WrongPlanet.net.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
My 6 year old niece has been surfing the net, and knows how to do things like set up Admin privileges for users in Windows ... and that was over a year ago. To kids born recently, they know of no life without computers or the internet. It isn't just an essential to them ... it's the way life is. I've warned my brother that if she encounters the content filter, she would probably just remove it, and may have already.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Blah Blah Blah.
I'm well aware that the Government or hackers* could compromise Slashdot and find out who I am. I also don't care. I can also lie to you about who I am on Slashdot. Assuming you use the handle "Kenja" on any other online forums I can probably show you fun-filled research papers from people who are really good at data mining who could probably track you down with a very high probability just based on the content of your publicly-available posts and some educated cross-reference guessing. It's life, deal with it.
*Slashdot still runs on Apache 1.3 you know, and the "infrastructure" if you can call it that hasn't been updated since the late '90s. It's been compromised in the past and I feel that hackers don't bother with doing more damage because there isn't any money in it.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Yeah, in that sense twitter can certainly be used semi-anonymously. But one should remember that it is still effectively a gigantic public forum (As is /.), and no matter the name you're using, if you talk about things directly related to your life (Such as employment) you may identifiable.
With the ability to use nicknames, you can delude yourself into thinking you have privacy when you really don't. With a real-name policy you are having your lack of privacy rubbed right in your face so you don't forget it and do something stupid under an "assumption" of privacy.
...
... The Internet was never anonymous.. it's just that the Internet made it (and still makes it) difficult to verify that the other person at the end of the pipe is actually who he says he is and isn't lying to you. Don't confuse lack of authentication with privacy, they ain't the same thing.
Would mod you up but I've already posted in this thread.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
FYI, it's spelt "Zontar the Mindless" but pronounced "Raymond Luxury Yacht".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
...facebook is not the right tool for communicating about things you don't want people to associate with you.
Bingo. It's that simple. seebs gets this, accepts the reality, and (or so we might reasonably assume) behaves accordingly.
(Unlike the 90% of users who seems to think FB should somehow be private whenever they just happen to want it to be.)
I've been in the public eye for 20+ years. When you live and work in the Bible Belt, you do not talk about your fondness for Scotch whiskey on your radio show. Unless you want the whole tri-county area to know about it. Which, if you want your ratings to remain viable, you don't. You might think just whispering it would keep it private, but hey, it's awfully amazing what a 100kW transmitter can do with even a whisper.
Similarly, when you're on the Internet, you don't post anything you would not wish to see associated with your name and photo on the cover of TIME magazine. Er, that dates me a bit, doesn't it? Let's say instead that, when you're on the Internet, you don't post anything to FB you would not wish to see associated with your name and likeness on the Jon Stewart show (he still has one, right?) or The Daily Kos.
On the Internet, "private" means--at best--"nobody else can see it... yet".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Insisting that if I wish to maintain anonymity I should avoid social sites is similar to the way I was ostracized when I attempted socialization when I was younger.
Yes, the real name policy is idiotic, but you shouldn't "avoid social sites" because of it. You should just be careful about what you disclose on social sites (just like everybody else should too). There is no reason you can't have one login for social sites and a different login for other bulletin boards.
That's how real life works too. Everybody has multiple layers of identities. And everybody practices different levels of self-disclosure based on the different persons they're talking to.
Even the kids that ostracized you when you were younger, I'll bet that they didn't talk about the fact that their mom and dad were alcoholics, or that they were caught shoplifting the week before, or whatever else they might have been embarrassed about themselves. Knowing how much to disclose, and how much not to disclose, and to whom, is an important life skill to have.
You think this violates the "anonymity" of the Internet? The Internet was never anonymous..
Really? Somehow I had this sneaking suspicion that pseudonyms allowed people to make the choice of anonymity or not. Oh wait, you're saying they're not the same thing. But you're wrong. The lack of an actual identity and authentication is the core of being anonymous.
Never mind that people value nicknames more than they value their real names on forums, people have a higher intrinsic value for a unique username.
Om, nomnomnom...
I've met some extremely high functioning autistics before. I've also met autistics who do not have violent outbursts.
It is rare however to see a high functioning autistic to write a well structured and empathetic passage like that without editing it for several hours. Given you wrote that passage in under an hour, clearly you were misdiagnosed.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
If you're buying something, be very careful but it's acceptable.
However, on freebie sites like Facebook it makes no sense to let them see into your life.
It's amazing how many people will rail against "corporations" and then put their entire life history, home address, pictures of friends and family, etc. into Facebook.
Futurist Traditionalism
Wie dies, Tommy Schweinhund!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You say he should just be careful what he discloses... You are failing to see the problem. Until he's had a lot of experience with a new social situation, he doesn't know what is acceptable and what isn't. And even then, that doesn't mean he understands WHY. Combined with the fact that he can't fully erase any actions or statements he makes online after making them, that leaves avoiding that media altogether or remaining anonymous. You are telling him to do the thing he has problems doing to begin with.
Also, hindsight is 20/20, etc.
Because he obviously has never thought about this issue before now, right? It didn't affect or influence him in any way prior to this story being posted.
When you have a mental condition and people tell you they just don't believe that you have it, it makes you question your own sanity. Your post makes a rather large assumption about someone you have never met and could be detrimental to the person it's aimed at. Apparently he's not the only one that has problems with emathy and filtering his output...
I find it rather unlikely that Facebook could find out your real name if you didn't give it to them and also didn't provide any ways for them to find it. They have virtually no chance of finding out your real ip address unless you seriously give it to them.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I wonder how much trouble this man might have had with his real name ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Those would be the aspies.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've been using "Ã-yvind SjÃlvklart" ("SjÃlvklart" is Swedish for obviously) since someone registered on Facebook using my e-mail address sometime in the middle of last year and they haven't closed my account yet. And they didn't mind that I changed my name to that (the person who registered with my e-mail used another surname). It may be that you only get into trouble when someone reports you and a human at facebook actually looks your account. I personally do not mind if they close my account, though, they can let me use only my first real name or I won't mind not having an account there.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Autism is a real condition with real people and families who need real help in dealing with it.
The way it's been trivialised into a mild personality quirk by self-diagnosed "autistics" and over-eager pediatritians is doing nothing but interfering with help getting where it is needed.
Being the most popular guy in the school is not normal, it's a profound gift. For most of us on this site, myself included, learning to make friends, fit in, use body language was one of the hardest parts of our lives. That does not make you autistic, that just means it's not your strongest skill. Calling youself autistic when you are capable of slowly learning these things is not helping yourself and is certainly not helping those who really have a serious disability that needs specialist help to overcome.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem