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Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

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Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#91

Post by yarrel »

morgante wrote: post #21

I 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…

It's easy to generate real-looking names, there are libraries to do so.

Requiring real-looking names therefore doesn't prevent bots.

If you're not being bombarded with friend requests by bots on Facebook that just means none of your friends have accepted a friend request from a profile with a picture of a young asian woman as its avatar (and an authentic-sounding name) yet...

You can validate your name on Twitter if you want to. You don't have to though.

Access to Facebook isn't a right (although in countries where it is the only net presence that may become more of an issue).

But Facebook's mistakes (and Real Names policies are a mistake) affect a lot of people, all of whom have the valid use case of "using Facebook as a platform".

So the argument is you're creating a false dichotomy between using Facebook to get "5000 followers" and wanting to use Facebook under your legal, European-sounding, name.

The valid use case you're missing is using Facebook under the name you generally go by without this being a problem if it's not a name Facebook thinks is valid.

Even I go under an informal version of my legal name - it's not the name on my birth certificate, passport, or bank account. So it's not my Real Name. And I'm not any of the groups that get hit hardest by this.

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#92

Post by kuschku »

natch wrote: post #76
morgante wrote: post #21

I 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…

And, in some countries, even making copies or photographing or scanning an ID is a crime. I’ll not commit a crime just to get access to Facebook.

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#93

Post by djur »

personjerry wrote: post #77

I'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?

Legally changing one's name ranges from "a pain in the ass" to "impossible", depending on jurisdiction and the contexts in which you have used your previous legal names. It is also generally part of the program for trans* people to spend a period of time living as their gender (name, clothes, etc.) before more permanent (medically and legally) steps are taken.

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#94

Post by aianus »

Swizec wrote: post #74
gurkendoktor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 consis…

I don't see the problem. A friend request is hardly that threatening. If you don't accept his/her fb request, how can he/she bother you?

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#95

Post by taswal_tmanir »

Spooky23 wrote: post #81

I hate Facebook, but I think they are right about this policy. If you're a person at risk due to many of the issues described here, you don't belong on Facebook. If you're a domestic violence victim avoiding a dangerous person "liking" the wrong thing or somebody's innocent repost can put you in danger, pseudonym or not. The transgender situation is similarly tragic, but it's an issue that trans people run into when…

> If you're a person at risk due to many of the issues described here, you don't belong on Facebook.

Including the "issues" of: being a "Native American...using traditional Irish and Scottish names...[being a] LGBTQ [Facebook] user"? Including the "issue" of just having an unusual name, like Violet Blue?

This is online. We shouldn't HAVE the same tragedies of discrimination as someone buying beer. We definitely shouldn't be promoting requirements that increase the likelihood of those tragedies.

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#96

Post by ryandrake »

natch wrote: post #76
morgante wrote: post #21

I 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…

What is the price I pay for not participating in Facebook?

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#98

Post by TeMPOraL »

jleader wrote: post #75
morgante wrote: post #21

I 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…

What about the people who do live single life, who do want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line? Why should we bow down and twist our system for the unfortunate minority that has a stalker problem?

There are ways to deal with those that don't involve designing the entire experience around the special cases. So someone has a restraining order against a stalker. Then it should be enough for them to be able to send a scan of this order to Facebook to mark themselves exempt from real-name policy. There is need for such a problem to influence the way most people experience the service.

Besides, what good does changing profile name do anyway? Even if you'd have a pseudonymous account, you still probably have your real-life friends added on Facebook. Any stalker worth the name will quickly find you by just browsing through friendlists of your friends (if you have a restraining order against him, it means he interacted with you enough to know some of your real-life friends).

You can't solve this problem by changing the service mechanics without ruining it for everyone. This is a kind of matter the police is supposed to deal with, and this in fact is an argument for more cooperation between Facebook and law enforcement.

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#99

Post by aianus »

cableshaft wrote: post #12
Animats wrote: post #5

Real names keep Facebook spam down. You can report real name violations to make spam accounts go away. That's worth doing. Giving that up to make a tiny number of drag queens happy isn't worth it.

Every teacher I know either doesn't use Facebook at all, or if they do, they don't use their real name. Why? Because they know that their students are going to look for them on Facebook out of curiosity and gossip amongst themselves about any detail that's on there (or if it's locked down, try to sneak onto their friends list and then gossip). They often have to be very careful or else they could easily get in troubl…

> or if it's locked down, try to sneak onto their friends list and then gossip

You can't 'sneak' into a friend's list. If you're paranoid enough not to use your real name, you can be paranoid enough to hide your name in searches and lock down your posts; it's not hard.

Re: Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

Swizec wrote: post #90
TeMPOraL wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. My boss and I were wondering the same thing after spending few days at client's site in another country, after which Facebook suggested the client as a friend to my boss, even though they never interacted electronically by means other than company e-mail. We thought about…

Somehow the Wi-Fi network theory sounds even creepier than geo-tracking. Also in my example, I didn't usually connect to any Wi-Fi because I have LTE. But of course I don't turn off wi-fi when I leave the house so my phone still does network discovery.

Does it now? By Wi-Fi tracking I'm thinking of SSID matching (which are public information), not pinging devices inside a single network.

Your data point about on-but-not-connected Wi-Fi supports both geotracking and SSID tracking. We need more data!

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