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I’ve been suspended from Google+

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Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#11

Post by olliesaunders »

rimantas wrote: post #10
celticjames wrote: post #5

I'm not sure I understand the real name policy of either Facebook or Google+. Isn't the whole point of a social graph that it is personally curated by me? The identities of my friends/circles are verified by me.

What if I want to find someone I met ten years ago and have no idea what nickname they have chosen? What about friends of my friends? If one does not agree with the policy—just don't sign up. I find fake names on Facebook really annoying.

It’s not up to you how someone chooses to make themselves known to others. If they want to change it’s probably for a reason.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#12

Post by nhangen »

dstein wrote: post #2

Welcome to what I call Google's vision of an "Orwellian Computing Age". Your every action & communication will be monitored, and your entire digital identity can be deleted by a centralized, seemingly autonomous authority. Better comply with the TOS or you might get yourself "ungoogled".

Maybe his comment wasn't perfect, but there is a good point buried inside of it. I'm not a big privacy freak, but let's call it what it is.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#13

Post by forkandwait »

Astrohacker wrote: post #3

I like being able to create new identities for different purposes. Why wouldn't Google+ allow that?

Besides other pragmatic business reasons, partly because in the Christian West we implicitly believe that every body has a transcendent soul, which is the "true" person, with a "true" name, and everything else is a lie. All our stuff about self-expression, being true to oneself, god sees inside when you die and are judged, Freud, etc, etc.

However, the idea of a transcendent subject may be utter bullshit -- who knows? There was a HN thread on the Japanese not having the same need for a "real" person connected consistently to an internet persona.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#14

Post by saurik »

forkandwait wrote: post #13
Astrohacker wrote: post #3

I like being able to create new identities for different purposes. Why wouldn't Google+ allow that?

Besides other pragmatic business reasons, partly because in the Christian West we implicitly believe that every body has a transcendent soul, which is the "true" person, with a "true" name, and everything else is a lie. All our stuff about self-expression, being true to oneself, god sees inside when you die and are judged, Freud, etc, etc. However, the idea of a transcendent subject may be utter bullshit -- who knows…

That philosophy, however, completely goes against the entire concept of Google+ "circles": to let you present yourself differently to one circle than you do to another.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#15

Post by saurik »

rimantas wrote: post #10
celticjames wrote: post #5

I'm not sure I understand the real name policy of either Facebook or Google+. Isn't the whole point of a social graph that it is personally curated by me? The identities of my friends/circles are verified by me.

What if I want to find someone I met ten years ago and have no idea what nickname they have chosen? What about friends of my friends? If one does not agree with the policy—just don't sign up. I find fake names on Facebook really annoying.

OK, and what if I want to find someone I met ten years ago, and I have no idea what their real name is because no one ever uses it? A ton of my friends in high school and college went by nicknames the entire time anyone ever interacted with them. I had a good friend in college whom /everyone/ called "C.C." (as in, "see see"): her name was "Corrine", but I don't really know how to spell it and I'm one of the few people who ever actually bothered to learn it.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#16

Post by mun2mun »

rimantas wrote: post #10
celticjames wrote: post #5

I'm not sure I understand the real name policy of either Facebook or Google+. Isn't the whole point of a social graph that it is personally curated by me? The identities of my friends/circles are verified by me.

What if I want to find someone I met ten years ago and have no idea what nickname they have chosen? What about friends of my friends? If one does not agree with the policy—just don't sign up. I find fake names on Facebook really annoying.

You can't find him by only his nickname. You have to add other things like where he lived, what is his college etc (if he wants to share that info with the world). Nickname/identity is not that important for you as it is for google/facebook.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#17

Post by autarch »

vladd wrote: post #8
Astrohacker wrote: post #3

I like being able to create new identities for different purposes. Why wouldn't Google+ allow that?

Eric Schmidt: The people who built the Internet did not get a stable version of identity; You need identity, in the sense that you are a person, this is who you are these are your friends and so on … The issue on the Internet is not the lack of Facebook, the issue on the Internet is the lack of identity. (from http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/09/eric-schmidt-on-gauging-goo... ) See also http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/h…

Identity is not the same as "name on your birth certificate". Skud's identity is Skud, not Kirrily Roberts.

I'm all for having stable identities on social networking services, but that has nothing to do with legal names vs pseudonyms.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#18

Post by joe_the_user »

Wickk wrote: post #4

"To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you." And this is what bothers me about this whole ordeal. Google's playing a stupidly dangerous ( in regards to making people want to use their services ) game of determining whats a "real" name before we're asked of all things to show our ID? That's a little absurd for a social networking client. We get why y…

That's it. Google's policies are more aggressively invasive than Facebook. They were a company I had some sympathy for. No longer.

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#19

Post by tty »

I wonder what Google intends on doing with people who simply use a fake name for their Google account/Google+ persona. Will they also get banned/have etheir Google+ accounts disabled? What about people from foreign countries? For example, if someone uses a name that basically means John Doe in a not-so-well-known language, will that also be considered misuse of the G+ service (use of a fake persona) or will it remain ignored because checking whether that is indeed an actual person's name or not would take too much resources on Google's end?

Re: I’ve been suspended from Google+

#20

Post by joe_the_user »

celticjames wrote: post #5

I'm not sure I understand the real name policy of either Facebook or Google+. Isn't the whole point of a social graph that it is personally curated by me? The identities of my friends/circles are verified by me.

No, the policy of at least Facebook is you use the real, legal names as determined by the state. If you are locked out of your Facebook account, they ask you to send a copy of a government issued ID to prove who you are.

The idea that you are "curating" might be something they'd like you to think.

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