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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."
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.