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The Single Vigilante Behind Facebook's 'Real Name' Crackdown
Molly McHugh sends this story from Daily Dot:
When Facebook issued an apology this week for suspending user accounts that had what it alleged to be fake names, it pinned the whole debacle on one person. This "individual," Facebook reasoned, sewed confusion into its flawed reporting system—intended to protect against bullying and online abuse. Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox explains that Facebook was caught “off guard” by a lone actor who reported “several hundred” accounts as fake. According to our source, who claims to have spent "hours and hours" systematically reporting Facebook users from the drag community and beyond, thousands of accounts were suspended—and they've been at it for weeks. ... Given the timing and the accounts suspended, they believe that they are in fact the mystery "individual" who threw a wrench into Facebook's system, noted in Facebook's explanation of the events. "Considering the hours and hours I spent reporting accounts over the course of the past month, it is likely that I am."
From the article:
"Oh no I'm very serious. Spent most of my time at work past 3 days reporting Queens."
Considering I spend my Friday midnight completing shellshock patches to keep this planet running ... Can we start firing people who are useless to the world in general?
I don't see what this person could have to gain from this other than just being a dickhead. Heaven forbid someone be different from what your approved normal is. What a pathetic jerk.
If applying your own laws is "throwing a wrench" perhaps your laws are the problem?
And yet, Facebook does nothing about obviously fake accounts, like Cheese Sandwich or the like. The problem is, people want to play the FB games, but they don't want to bother their real friends with the game messages, so the only solution is to have a "fake" account. FB should do something to allow for social gaming without mixing it into real socializing. Allow people to have a game account that is "fake", but can't post non-game-related items. They already separate game posts from real posts, it wouldn't be that difficult to do.
In the Gamer community this person would be known as a griefer, they enjoy nothing more than ruining things for others and while spend as many hours if not more doing so.
CAPTCHA: offends
"Considering the hours and hours I spent reporting accounts over the course of the past month, it is likely that I am A GIANT DOUCHEBAG."
Is how it should correctly read.
Yes, the whackjob who made all these bogus reports is primarily responsible for this mess. I doubt anyone would argue that point.
But can we also recognize that fb screwed up by creating a "system" that was so pathetically easy to abuse? This is yet another example of an online entity with mountains of money that can't piss straight. thanks to their horrible mgmt, fb is the cancer of the Internet, or at least one of them.
This is not news and it certainly isn't news for nerds.
This reads like it is an excuse to trot out the words "drag queen" and "transgender" in a news article.
I suspect that the media is going to start working on the public in an attempt to bring the idea of these fringe sexual proclivities into more mainstream acceptance, sort of like what has happened with homosexuality over the past few decades.
Mark my words. You're going to start seeing more and more of this stuff. And the groups in question will always be "oppressed" somehow.
The problem is not this guy nor Facebook's rules, but that the rules were enforced in a biased manner. This will always be a problem with only enforcing a rule after a report, because unpopular groups or individuals will be reported more often than the majority.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
all I'm saying is I got caught in the nimbus of this and my gaming account was suspended three weeks ago. I know who it was, he works in a bar in Manchester but a: not having proof and b: not being arsed with fighting a libel suit, I'm not naming names.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
not "sewed". sheesh.
Why does Facebook (or any other public website), even care whether people use their real names? I understand the theory of the "dis-inhibition effect", but that seems more relevant to a forum than a site where people voluntarily opt-in ("friend" / "de-friend)their pool of correspondents. They still get to target advertising data to users whatever their displayed names are, and this policy would seem to only discourage more users from the site.
Am very curious why they would have this requirement.
Think about it
Funny how I report spammers and obviously fake name game accounts that are allowed to continue but one person reported a few hundred accounts as fake names and they suspend them.
Sowed, not sewed - planting reference, not clothing construction.
I apologize for the semi-offensive subject, but nothing else I tried was as accurate or clear.
There's no 'lone actor' or 'rogue account' forcing them to do this. This is THEIR OWN POLICY. Claiming someone else 'forced' them to do it is standard corporate/military/law enforcement weaseling. 'The officer's gun was discharged 30 times into the suspect.' Well darn, that poor officer with his gun going off like that and all.
Total damage control bullcrap.
First, they came for our real names... and I said nothing, because I don't use my real name...
Obviously a repressed queen.
What's troubling is the fact that no one at Facebook contemplated the possibility that this policy would be used as a form of bullying. Their aribtrarily-enforced rules about nudity are routinely used the same way by homophobes, who go around reporting innocuous photos (and even illustrations) of partial male nudity or even just gay couples kissing or showing affection, causing headaches, suspensions, and even bans of gay people from the site. And they do so with complete impunity because they can do so anonymously, and there is no penalty for false reports. The users who are reported are given no right to challenge their accusers (or even know who they are), and effectively no right to appeal. Facebook's own policies and procedures facilitate and empower this kind of harassment and abuse. And they're just now noticing?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
If you refuse to assimilate into western culture, you should try creating your own Internet and complain on there. Because nobody here wants to hear it.
This is going to be a Mecha-Streisand level event once that name gets leaked.
It is facebook's pointless, unfair, side-effect prone, and essentially pinheaded "real name" policy that is the problem. Without the policy, the problem would not exist (and people who would have otherwise not had to reveal their real names could be a lot safer on the site.)
But that's the nature of the beast. They're selling you to advertisers, and they can do whatever they want with you. Any idea you had about the site being about you is laughably off-base. What it is, is bait for you. They'll do what they need to do to attain and maintain critical mass for their actual customers (advertisers), and not one thing more.
The citizens are, by and large, far too dimwitted to move to a network where they *are* the focus. And so it goes.
At the core of the problem has always been Facebook's real name policy, plus the way they handle complaints by users against users. Reporting people violating Facebook's policy to Facebook isn't vigilantism; the responsibility for the policy and its enforcement still lies entirely with Facebook.
Although as a private institution, they can do what they want, maybe voluntarily respecting principles that work well in public life, namely free speech and due process, would perhaps be a good policy?
The problem is, in fact, with Facebook's rules. Facebook did not recognize that a class of persons, that they would have been better off providing protection for, strongly identified with a name other than their legal name.
The rules were not enforced in a biased manner, but in a blind manner.
What you want is a compensatory bias to be applied after a report. That's not unbiased enforcement.
I'm truly sorry you chose to make that post anonymously. Spot on, and amusing at the same time. I would have enjoyed making sure I took special note of future postings if I knew who you were. Well, kudos anyway. :)
The rush to "do" underlies a great deal of our problems from incompatible OS upgrades, bugs left behind to fester, the rug being yanked out from under previously working applications, and functionality going missing -- or crazy -- or sideways -- in existing user applications. There are methodologies that can resolve all of these things the vast majority of the time, but very few software developers at any level use them. Much harm results.
<RANT>
Primary among them, NEVER remove or change the stated design behavior of an existing function. If you have a better idea, add a new function with a new stated design behavior. Leave the previously existing one alone; if necessary, point out that it won't work with "new stuff", if indeed that is the case. Then stop. If an already existing function is not behaving as the stated design behavior says it should, change it until it does.
Pro tip: If "upgrading", if whatever "enhancements" you created make something stop working or degrades how it works in an existing application that used the function according to its stated design intent, it's about 1000000:1 that it's your fault AND that you shouldn't have done whatever you did.
It doesn't matter if you're an OS programmer, an application programmer, a PD library maintainer, or what. If and when you screw up existing stated design behavior, you have not created an "upgrade", you have created a "fuckyougrade" and somewhere, someone, or more likely many someones, are contemplating dragging you through a fire ant hill after dousing you with some other ant hill's characteristic pheromones.
</RANT>
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
for people to realize that they shouldn't be using Facebook - or "free social media" at all?
I mean, honestly, how many reports of Facebook screwing over people that use its 'free' service do we need before we get a clue? Are we really so narcissistic that we think we have to post messages about what we had for lunch, pictures of our cat, etc to make ourselves feel important?
Facebook is shit, the people who use it are shit, and if accounts are cancelled the rest of the world will keep on trucking.
Been a long time since we had beers and talked about the burden of having an apostrophe in our names. look me up some time. Sincerely, Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory.
Wow, sometimes vigilantes are good! Sometimes organized police are bad! Who knew?
I hate to say this, but this is a classic war of good versus evil. The good people have been trying to live their lives, but also not allowing hate speech to be spread about them. The bad is the people who spew the hate and who have had their hate groups shut down because they were reported, rightfully so as spewing hate. Seems like the evil side found a easy way to retaliate. :(
A long time ago, I knew a guy who thought he'd met the woman of his dreams online. Flew overseas to meet her. Problem is that she was a he and had never told him. He was decidedly NOT okay with or interested in that.
Cedric Gracia theoretically could fall foul of facebook's "real name" policy. Lillian Garcia would not.
Funny how I report spammers and obviously fake name game accounts that are allowed to continue but one person reported a few hundred accounts as fake names and they suspend them.
Wouldn't spammers be their top customers?
Obviously the current system in which individuals with ideological axes to grind can negatively impact communities where people don't go by their legal names. However, it's not obvious what the right rule should be. Of course I think you should be able to use psuedonyms, nicknames, stage names etc.. etc.. on facebook but how do you deal with facebook identity theft.
So I have Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I go create a facebook account pretending to be her and, if she isn't a huge celebrity, it wouldn't be too hard to convince a large number of people (probably anyone not already friends with the real individual) that I'm really Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I can then use that account to make her look like a racist, ruin relationships with coworkers and potential employers etc.. etc... unless my fake account can be suspended quit quickly. Alright how can facebook do this.
1) A real names policy. True, this has all the bad consequences above but it allows them to immediately suspend accounts but isn't vulnerable to serious DOS type attacks since a since credit card transaction or the like can quickly confirm someone's legal name and prevent any false impersonation accusation from ever causing another suspension. Given the low probability that someone with the same name wants to engage in the impersonation facebook has enough human hours to evaluate these rare situations in reasonable detail.
But this undermines an essential purpose of facebook. To let people present themselves online to the same people they know offline meaning stage names, nicknames etc.. etc..
2) A no impersonation rule. Alright now someone asserts the account Jennifer Doe is impersonating her. What can facebook do? If the suspend the existing account things are even worse since instead of creating a fake account someone with ill-intent asserts that the current account holder is an imposter gets their account suspended and now controls the only account representing itself to be Jennifer Doe's. Given the size of facebook they simply can't stop anyone from creating any new account with that name and the impersonator could create an account Jen Doe.
The very fact that people are allowed to use names other than their legal names means there is no good heuristic to see who is likely the deliberate imposter. After all Jennifer Doe might be the name she goes by in school but the name on her birth certificate could well be Bertha Jennifer Doe and Jennifer might not even appear on things like credit cards meaning facebook doesn't even have a good guess as to the imposter.
Also this creates the possibility of a DOS attack against any account (keep claiming it is an imposter account from accounts). If facebook eventually stops viewing such imposter accusations as real then any imposter who gets their before the real user can simply launch a bunch of accusations of imposterization at themselves until they insulate themselves against any accusation from the person they are actually impostering (after all they can be a perfectly legit Jennifer Doe account then change their picture and other details later to impersonate a target).
----
What they should do is basically implement a web of trust style infrastructure. Facebook can start occasionally asking people who frequently message or are listed as close friends whether the person they talked to or the person with that email address really went to school such and such. Also friend requests should include a couple of selected bits of public info (like email address and the like) which, would hopefully make impersonization more difficult.
Ultimately, however, facebook needs to have a attestation system akin to key signing. You get your close friends to attest that the person whose picture and details appear in the facebook account really controls the account. Details will be a pain in the ass but it's the only plausible way since impersonization is a matter of details like schools, pictures etc.. etc.. not real names and facebook just can't check those themselv
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
and a complete failure at life.
I'm trying to not encourage people to kill themselves any more, but I have to make an exception in this case. Seriously, the world will be a better place when you're dead. Your parents know it, your acquaintances (because you don't have any actual friends) know it, now it's time for you to figure it out.
""This "individual," Facebook reasoned, sewed confusion""
Might he just be using a needle and thread to sew the garments rent in the sowing of such discontent.
Not much tolerance on either side by the look of things.
Drag queens: We want to use this to connect with our fans.
Facebook: Use a "Page" like everyone else, and not a profile.
Drag queens: Yeah, but we'd have to pay to promote ourselves.
I'm sure any business/musician/actress would love to not have to pay to promote themselves. But no one sees (or wants to point out), that the drag queens just want to use Facebook for business purposes for free.
So... What's this lone actor's real name? :)
The best way to show a flawed policy is to force them to actually enforce the policy. Too often we enabled flawed policies and rules to flounder because we ignore them or find ways around the policy. If you want to change the policy, enforce the policy. For too long, Facebook's real name policy has been indiscriminately enforced. Many users persist for years with obviously fake names, while other people feel the full force of the policy, usually those in discriminated groups. This happens all the time in real life, where enforcing agencies will selectively enforce policies or laws on targeted groups. Selective enforcement of the law can be illegal as it runs counter to the equal protection act and 14th amendment, and corporations need to be careful that they don't run afoul those in discriminatory business practices.
When a problem affects a small portion of a majority, you run into the "somebody, everybody, anybody, nobody" situation. "Somebody should fix this. Anybody can fix this. Everybody knows it should be fixed. So it ends up being the job of Nobody." This eventually devolves into the attitude that "since this affects the majority, it's the government's job to fix it." I call this the "complacency of the majority."
When a minority group is affected, they *know* that if they don't stand up and speak out, nothing's going to change. The majority may not notice there's a problem, since it doesn't affect them, or they may be reasoning "If you can't be arsed to do something about this, and it directly affects you, why should I bother?"
That's why most social change in society originates with minorities - the majority sees no urgent reason to change things that work for them. Two examples: The driver didn't say to Rosa Parks "Madame, you look tired, why don't you just set down here in the front of the bus?" and it was only after AIDS became recognized as a problem for heterosexuals that the majority took note and put real resources into the fight. I'm sure you can think of more.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The way to get around the negative effects of the real name policy is to register your real name, but using a different alphabet than the Latin one. Facebook allows you to submit your name using whatever alphabet you want. I.e., if you have a Japanese name, you are allowed to submit it in the Latin alphabet. If you have an English name, you are allowed to submit it in the Arabic alphabet. I submitted mine in the Greek alphabet, because that was easiest to get the correct transliteration in.
Obviously using a sewing machine due to the sheer volume of accounts. I wonder what the thread count on confusion is.
For the spelling challenged: This spring farmers "sowed" their crops.
If the self appointed RealNamePolice hadn't made such a stink, ello wouldn't have gone viral. Suddenly facebook, a company I loathe and despise and use only with fake names, has competition. I haven't seen their service, but ello have a good manifesto, and plan to use a business model where their end-users are customers rather than assets. Facebook has achieved a degree of critical mass they've been using to revert the internet to AOL. Unless an open distributed social networking protocol emerges (unforunately, Diaspora wasn't able to make it happen), someone has to run the backbone of social networking, and I'd rather it wasn't Facebook.
So thank you RealNamePolice, not for being a dork harrassing Drag Queens, but for stirring up 30,000 Facebook users an hour to go somewhere else.
minds, get scrambled like eggs, abused and erased. Hard Hearted Alice is who you want to see.