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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."
What's a "real name"? The name that you insist everyone calls you would be my definition. "Don't call me by my government"
Real name policies are BS anyhow - very Western Firstname Lastname centric, ignorant of cultures where the only unique name for someone is the list of all the names they're known by (which, as you might imagine, makes printed phone books less than useful).
One of the great truisms of software development is that there's no universal way to break down a persons name into components, and people get really pissed when you get their name wrong.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This mentality explains why so many 'professional' sites are the ones losing customer data to info thieves.
This reminds me of a recent incident in Seattle where 80% of the tickets for smoking weed in public were written by one officer, as though he was manufacturing evidence of wrongdoing or something. Using pot is legal in Washington, but not in public, and the officer was doing his job. The problem is in the underlying law.
not quite. A Statutory Declaration, which what you're referring to to give its proper name, is signed by two witnesses or a Notary. This is simply a declaration that you're using a new name, possibly one which you're already using and by which people know you, and that you disavow any future usage of your previous name. A Deed Poll (or to give its proper name, a Change of Name Deed) is countersigned by a Magistrate and given weight by a Judicial Seal.
(I've acted as a sig witness many times).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Phelps was a smash and grab lawsuit factory. They purposely intended to incite people hiding behind religious freedom in the hopes someone would retaliate in a way they could sue and gang band big bucks. It's probably nothing like what was going through this asshats head.
Instead, it is likely more related to the why only me mentality.
Many of you might have suffered it yourself. It's like in school when everyone is talking instead of reading and one person gets singled out by the teacher and that person objects because everyone else was doing it too. It's like following the flow of traffic with ten cars in front of you and ten cars behind you and the cop single you out to give a speeding ticket- why is he busting me and letting everyone else go?
This guy likely had some super cool name he had to change from and use his real name instead which was less cool and was pissed because others were getting by with using fake names. I've had that happen before in games, one game, you had to use English in your profiles or provide a translation, one kid got busted using his native Croatian and went around reporting everyone else' profile that were not in English and didn't have a translation (which took up space in the profile shortening what you could put in it). The rules stated there was an exception if the non-English phrase was common enough to be understood but "For rent, agent of death- caveat emptor" got me a 2 day ban because of him.
No, it means that you're too lazy to bother reading what's out there about this person - who admits, even glorifies, in targeting a specific community - members of the LGBT community.
Why do the police target criminals? It's SO UNFAIR!!!
Oh, wait, he targets the people who are violating the TOS.
Deal with it.
It's been dealt with - facebook has decided that this was not, in fact, a violation of their TOS. People are allowed to use the name they are commonly known to the world by. So everyone who knows Billy-Bob and Mary-Ann from high school doesn't have to search for William Robert and Maria Anastasia.
Can you understand the chilling effect this would have on people who are following their doctor's orders, who have told friends and family that they're getting a sex change, but who, because of a mis-application of facebook's policy, would still have to use their old, gender-inappropriate name?
No, because I can't understand what kind of horrible doctor would order anyone to do something that insane.
What? Order someone to live for a year in their target gender before getting a sex change? It gives time to create a supportive environment with our job, friends, family, before doing anything permanent. And finding out who our real friends are, time to adapt to the hormonal changes and the emotional changes they can trigger, and being able to have a job after surgery, because just walking into work without giving everyone a heads-up in advance will create problems. Or, if work doesn't accept the situation, get a new job in our new gender right from the get-go.
Or if you think that the whole idea of transsexuals getting a sex change is horrible, well, we'll just have to disagree on that, for obvious reasons :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
As for myself, I'll be happy once the world learns to build systems that don't break on the apostrophe in my last name. I still come across plenty of systems that don't, and every time I am tempted to go "Johnny Tables" on their ass.
I'm still waiting for computer systems that can handle my address, which has a y with a circumflex in it... I frequently get letters and packages arrive that has "ŷ" printed on the address label! (Yes, even big international websites like Amazon, SagePay, etc. are incapable of using a valid UTF-8 character... In fact ISTR SagePay's API only supports ISO8859.
http://blog.nexusuk.org