How does EFF get it's funding? I feel like they should be given more credit for what they are doing.
Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
71–80 of 266 posts
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#72I wish the EFF and others who are against using real names would at least acknowledge the drawbacks of pseudonyms and the proliferation of fake accounts and fake names which comes with them. The real name policy has huge benefits. I'm not constantly bombarded by fake friend requests like I am on Twitter, Skype, or any other platform which allows random usernames. Even more importantly, I can easily find the people in…
Real-name internet identities have some drawbacks compared to their real-world counterparts:
1. In real life its fairly easy (and I would say healthy) to have multiple "identities", say your workday exquisitely professional identity and weekend identity which enjoys goofy antics with friends. In infinitely googlable internet - not so much. I guess mitigating this is the idea behind google+ circles but I have never used them so can't say much.
2. In real life past events tend to diminish in significance after some time passes. So someone who had committed a misstep can atone himself over time. Not so on the internet - what happened on the internet stays on the internet ... like forever and also infinitely googlable. This is less relevant to the walled garden of facebook but relevant to the internet at large.
Considering the difficulties with friend requests - you are usually connected to the people you want to befriend through other means (e.g. in real life). So use that channel to communicate your pseudonym! I guess real-name policy had sense when facebook was being discovered by former classmates who wanted to be in touch over the internet for the first time but these days are long gone.
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As much as I hate what Facebook is doing, I don't think this is anywhere near the right answer. That's how regulations work. You dictate to a private business its responsibilities to its customers or users. I don't understand why that isn't the right answer (although Europe seems to do far better about this than the US). > Besides, do you really think governments want to see less information collected, when having…
> That's how regulations work. You dictate to a private business its responsibilities to its customers or users. I don't understand why that isn't the right answer (although Europe seems to do far better about this than the US). You should, at the very least, already know that this is not a universally held position, but rather one that many people oppose as vigorously as you support it. Without descending into polit…
People use lots of businesses voluntarily. We still regulate them. That's probably not going away.
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#74I wish the EFF and others who are against using real names would at least acknowledge the drawbacks of pseudonyms and the proliferation of fake accounts and fake names which comes with them. The real name policy has huge benefits. I'm not constantly bombarded by fake friend requests like I am on Twitter, Skype, or any other platform which allows random usernames. Even more importantly, I can easily find the people in…
> People who are trying to disconnect their Facebook identity from their real world identity are not using Facebook the way it's meant to be used and should probably just leave it. Some people use their pseudonym (usually a nick name) in real life as well, except for work, and I think separating work from Facebook is exactly how Facebook should be used. (There's always LinkedIn for work...) Another thing I see a lot…
> Tellingly, my female FB friends are much more likely to obfuscate their names (and get blocked for it).
This is the part of Facebook that's really creepy. As a guy who used to date around a lot, I was surprised by how well the "find user" function works.
You connect with someone on Tinder, and meet up in real life. You have no friends in common, no digital connection other than a week-old Tinder conversation consisting of 5 messages. Neither of you checks-in to the restaurant you met up at.
But when you type the woman's first name into Facebook (you don't know her last name), she will be the first suggested result.
I don't know how they do it. But they do it. I'm assuming geo-tracking of phones and noticing that you spent X hours together the previous night.
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#75I wish the EFF and others who are against using real names would at least acknowledge the drawbacks of pseudonyms and the proliferation of fake accounts and fake names which comes with them. The real name policy has huge benefits. I'm not constantly bombarded by fake friend requests like I am on Twitter, Skype, or any other platform which allows random usernames. Even more importantly, I can easily find the people in…
What about people who don't want all of their real life relationships to be able to follow them online? For example, suppose someone has a restraining order against a stalker, so they don't want to be findable online. Does that mean they're "not using Facebook the way it's meant to be used and should probably just leave it"?
Online interaction has very different affordances than off-line interaction (for example, the ease of searching, the indefinite persistence of communications, etc.). Pretending that saying "Facebook should be just like real life" erases those differences is naive.
There's a cost to allowing pseudonymity, but there's also a cost to its lack, it's just that the latter cost is distributed very unevenly.
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#76I wish the EFF and others who are against using real names would at least acknowledge the drawbacks of pseudonyms and the proliferation of fake accounts and fake names which comes with them. The real name policy has huge benefits. I'm not constantly bombarded by fake friend requests like I am on Twitter, Skype, or any other platform which allows random usernames. Even more importantly, I can easily find the people in…
This reminds me of the meme of first world problems versus third world problems.
Essentially, you are saying that because it saves you some annoyance, it's a good tradeoff, even if that means that a few others face not annoyance, but actual existential threats of death, violence, imprisonment, dismemberment, etc.
http://violetblue.tumblr.com/post/130440543695/why-im-sittin...
Edit: and yes, participation in Facebook is somewhat optional, but there's a larger price to be paid for not participating than the price of any of the annoyances you mention.
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#77I've only heard of the issue from the LGBTQ stance, and I'm not very clear here. But I'm wondering, for these people, why not just legally change your name?
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sincerely curious ... how is a social network like Facebook, which is built around connecting you with your real-world friends and acquaintances, supposed to work if you can't require users to identify themselves in a meaningful way? The little "people you may know" widget is really useful, because it shows me names I recognize from my offline life. If it's just a random stream of pseudonyms and online handles, t…
The little "people you may know" widget is really useful It seems to be quite useful for generating spam-mails, I'll give it that...
I'm convinced these are the primary reason that gmail added the tabs to its interface, so we could all ignore the "Social" tab.
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#79I wish the EFF and others who are against using real names would at least acknowledge the drawbacks of pseudonyms and the proliferation of fake accounts and fake names which comes with them. The real name policy has huge benefits. I'm not constantly bombarded by fake friend requests like I am on Twitter, Skype, or any other platform which allows random usernames. Even more importantly, I can easily find the people in…
Most people have a partitioned identity. There is a side you show to your friends, a side you show to your colleagues, a side for your parents, for your significant other and even one for your kids.
An online persona is just another partition that whilst you may don't want to hide, you probably want to keep the intersection with most of the rest of the partitions to a minimum.
In real world there is a physical separation. All your contacts know you by your real name but only interact with a specific partition. On the other hand, in the virtual world, all your contacts will have to interact with your one online persona.
A pseudonym is an easy and practical way to have more than one online personas or keep your one persona limited to a certain group of people in your life. The people you want to interact with a certain part of your identity, are easy to reach; online nicknames are part of everyone's life. For the rest, they will have to search a bit more to find you and even then, they will be less imposed to take into account that part of your identity due to the use of a pseudonym.
Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users
#80People just need to stop using Facebook. Join Twitter and be Happy #JackIsBack
"I don't make the rules, I just pick which rules I follow"