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Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

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Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#61

Post by pmlnr »

viraptor wrote: post #49
pmlnr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For many communities there's simply no alternative to FB right now. Make one. Work on it. Why would someone else make it for them/you for 'free'?

Why should I? That alternative is FB, without bad rules. Facebook already won with features and has approximately all the people already registered. From the communities I know, nobody would consider switching to a different service. It would just be a worse FB with fewer people on it.

It sounds like you've never been a part of a forum or similar a decade ago. It's usually much better with less people.

For the why: because a, monopoly is bad; b, Facebook is broken on too many levels.

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#62

Post by Aqueous »

The whole reason Facebook has any enforceable standards as a community is because of that policy. The community standards uphold themselves because there are be real-life social consequences for saying something hateful / sexually harassing somebody / posting pornography - the list goes on. Having to use your real name on Facebook is what keeps you accountable. If you want to see Facebook turn into a sewer, get rid of the real names policy. Witness 4Chan and YouTube comments.

They should make exceptions for certain cases, such as when someone is avoiding harassment, or has changed names due to being transgender, or lives under an authoritarian regime. But they can and should do so on a case-by-case basis.

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#63

Post by nommm-nommm »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #15
avolcano wrote: post #6

Good, I'm glad this is getting traction. Seems like every week I read about another trans person or someone who uses a psuedonym in day-to-day life getting "reported" by some asshole and getting locked out of their Facebook, and Facebook seems uninterested in fixing the issue. Honestly, it's heartbreaking, as someone who uses many Facebook open source projects, to talk to engineers at Facebook and find out how many d…

It doesn't just affect people with pseudonyms, too. If you're from some ethnic background which has unusual names, if you have some uncommon or fake-sounding real name, you might also get tripped up.

Facebook Name Police: Native American Names Aren't 'Authentic' Enough - http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/02/13/faceboo...

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#64

Post by nommm-nommm »

aianus wrote: post #29
DanBC wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying it's fine that Facebook chooses to discriminate against GLBT+ people? What happens if we sub in other minorities? "If black people disagree, walk away and don't touch Facebook"; "If Jews disagree, walk away and don't touch Facebook".

They're not discriminating against GLBT+ people, they're discriminating against people using pseudonyms. I can't show up to a job interview, use a fake name, and claim I'm being discriminated against...

Serious question - What's a fake name? Plenty of people go by names that aren't the same as on their official government ID, even childhood nicknames. Your name is whatever people call you. There's no reason why future employers need to know your "legal" name on a job interview. When you get a job you need to fill out some HR forms and that's basically extent of it. Your coworkers/boss/clients/customers aren't obligated to address you by what is on your government issued ID. Probably half my office goes by something different than what's on their government IDs. Many childhood nicknames and many middle names. Even commonly used diminutives - Peggy for Margaret for example; JP for John Paul; Dick for Richard. If my legal name is Margaret Samathia Jones and I put Peggy Jones on my resume is that going by a fake name? You may have changed your name at marriage and are addressed by that name in personal circles but still are addressed as your birth name in a professional circles in order to better preserve your professional contacts. In plenty of professions it is extremely common to establish yourself professionally under a stage name or pen name or other types of "fake" names. Your legal name may be "cutesy" so you are addressed professionally by an assumed name.

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#65

Post by viraptor »

pmlnr wrote: post #61
viraptor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I? That alternative is FB, without bad rules. Facebook already won with features and has approximately all the people already registered. From the communities I know, nobody would consider switching to a different service. It would just be a worse FB with fewer people on it.

It sounds like you've never been a part of a forum or similar a decade ago. It's usually much better with less people. For the why: because a, monopoly is bad; b, Facebook is broken on too many levels.

Yes I have. It works for tech communities. It works for topic discussions. It works for many things. What it would completely fail for is a worldwide group of people who have a lot of personal connections between them, organise and announce semi-public events (100s a year), have local groups (1000s), and share a lot of information within one of those relationships. Also ~100% of them are already on FB and successfully do all of the above.

So again, no. Monopoly is bad, Facebook is bad/good depending on use case, sure. But this is not possible to migrate to a forum. Very simplified situation exists for developers - with the personal part reduced and with very limited local groups you have this information spread over twitter / local boards / meetup.com / etc. anyway. If I wanted to check events in some area, it's actually not trivial. It would be also a complete pain to centralise. You know what I do for the other use case? Post to facebook, share it in a group that's approximately in the same area in the world, and I get all information I need in a few minutes / hours: links to specific groups, specific events, and if needed I've got FB messenger contact to people who posted it.

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#67

Post by larrik »

bad_user wrote: post #59
alimbada wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they hear them from someone they're actively attempting to recruit, I expect it would carry more weight. At the very least it will make FBs HR department aware of the issue. As the parent commenter said, there are a lot of people at FB who aren't even aware of these issues.

It's more likely that it will make the candidate look like an asshole.

I don't think so. I regularly response to Amazon recruiters with "your reputation for treatment of your developers is poor, and therefore I'm not interested." It helps provide a data point to drive change, something that someone can point to when arguing with their higher-ups.

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#68

Post by cognivore »

This totally piques my "don't tread on me."

Facebook is a service you don't have to use. They're an American company. No one should be telling them to now run service, U.S. or otherwise.

I hope Zuck flips them the bird and then ignores them.

And this is from a person who doesn't have a Facebook account and generally doesn't care for them as a company.

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#69

Post by pc86 »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #64
aianus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not discriminating against GLBT+ people, they're discriminating against people using pseudonyms. I can't show up to a job interview, use a fake name, and claim I'm being discriminated against...

Serious question - What's a fake name? Plenty of people go by names that aren't the same as on their official government ID, even childhood nicknames. Your name is whatever people call you. There's no reason why future employers need to know your "legal" name on a job interview. When you get a job you need to fill out some HR forms and that's basically extent of it. Your coworkers/boss/clients/customers aren't obliga…

And nobody is having their Facebook account flagged for using "Peggy" instead of "Margaret," they're getting flagged for using "John TheSexMan Doe" instead of the "John Doe" or "Samantha Applebee" instead of "Mark Applebee." So it's a false comparison.

Re: Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy

#70

Post by pdkl95 »

Symbiote wrote: post #32
mrweasel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking something along those lines. I think the strenght of Facebooks is that people use their real name. I wasn't even thinking about searchability, but that's potentially going right out the window. 3rd. parties that are using Facebook for logins are frequently using/allowing Facebook precisely because you're relative sure that it's "a real person". I know that's one reason why we're using it. I might be wr…

Facebook profiles use names that look reasonable, but they aren't necessarily real names. I have at least three friends who don't use their official names in normal life, and have Facebook profiles under slightly modified versions of their names [1] to make them look "normal". (Contriving an example, change "Tall David" to "Taal David" and everyone that knows Tall David can work it out.) [1] name = what they call the…

> name = what they call themselves

That ability to call yourself something at your option is more than just a name - it's the very definition of privacy in the modern age.

It used to be that you had privacy when you moved away from society. Acquiring privacy was mostly an exercise in hiding information. In the modern world where logfiles exist forever and the difficulty of getting away form all network-connected microphones is rising fast.

When you know you cannot hide from eavesdroppers, the tactics switch form concealment to steganography. You have the possibility of privacy if-and-only-if you have the effective capacity to misrepresent yourself.

Unfortunately, real-name policies are de facto attacks on privacy and the right of to chose how to present yourself to the world. Worse, suggests a new interpretation for the "real-names make social interaction more polite" argument, societies without privacy resist experimentation because of chilling effects.

As for the proposed workaround of using a fake name: I guess they are supposed simply hope that Facebook doesn't ask about their name, everybody they know doesn't tell them the truth

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