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Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

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Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#121

Post by luriel »

v0cab wrote: post #114
FellowTraveler wrote: post #109

In Mexico, bloggers are disemboweled and strung up from bridges as a warning to others, by cartels. In Syria, government snipers murdered bloggers to silence them. In China, bloggers are imprisoned at hard labor. In the United States, the Federalist Papers were released anonymously in order to protect the lives of their authors. It is only the spoiled, rich and free countries who make such naive and irresponsible sta…

Great post. I am in South Korea. I could be imprisoned for the the things I have written here about Samsung and their owning family.

In Thailand you could be imprisoned if anything you say can be misconstrued as a criticism of the King.

This kinds of laws that make all kinds of utterly harmless speech a very serious risk are very widespread.

See also what happened to some poor guy that made a joke in Twitter about his trip to the US.

People in favor of "Real Names" are the same kind of people who say "If you have nothing to hide, why do you care about privacy?"

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#122

Post by vidarh »

psbp wrote: post #62
clobber wrote: post #55

We're setting a really bad precedent for the future here and these sorts of things need to stop now. Unfortunately, people don't seem to want to fight this. Now we have people getting turned down for jobs because they DON'T have a facebook account[1]. What's next? 1. http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/109ipi/no_faceboo...

Facebook is possibly the most dangerous social construct created. And no, it's not because privacy or information are too sacred to be utilized, but because personal identity is so easily perverted with market, institutional, societal interests. It's not hard to imagine a near future, if not a present, in which a person's identity is entirely evaluated, shaped, and determined by a monolith such as facebook.

The question then is how long before someone creates a business around "staging" your Facebook profile to fit certain profiles.

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#123

Post by protomyth »

jrtashjian wrote: post #13

The only problem with forcing real names that I've recently encountered are family members who work in prisons. They use a modified name as to make it difficult for an inmate to gain knowledge of them and where they live. Personal and family protection in a way with the ability to still use Facebook to connect with distant friends and family members. Anyone else run into this instance?

Sadly, safety concerns are not a concern of advertisers or the CFO.

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#124

Post by ams6110 »

FellowTraveler wrote: post #109

In Mexico, bloggers are disemboweled and strung up from bridges as a warning to others, by cartels. In Syria, government snipers murdered bloggers to silence them. In China, bloggers are imprisoned at hard labor. In the United States, the Federalist Papers were released anonymously in order to protect the lives of their authors. It is only the spoiled, rich and free countries who make such naive and irresponsible sta…

These are valid points. But there are myriad ways to blog anonymously. If Facebook wants to be a place where people are known by their real names, then that's their business.

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#125

Post by vidarh »

Karunamon wrote: post #32
fleitz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a "real" name vs. one that is not "real"? Did you mean legal name? And if so does that exclude legal aliases? What about Madonna, is that her 'real' name?

Are you called "fleitz" in real life? No? That is not your real name then. It is a pseudonym. This isn't rocket science.

My ex goes under 3 first names. Her legal name is an African name that few people in the UK can pronounce. Two largely non-overlapping sets of her friends call her by two different English names that are "close" to her legal name. Only some people in her family usually call her by her legal name.

Which is her "real" name? Most people use one of the English names. She responds the same to all three.

If she had to use her legal name everywhere, most of her friends would be unable to find her, as few of them even know her legal name. What makes her legal name more or less "real" than the others (which are used more, by more people)? Why?

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#126

Post by pasbesoin »

Time to call it: Jumped the shark.

Is there anything more "anti-social" they could have done? Betrayal. Or... maybe they're just trying to make it more realistically social?

Seriously, it's another instance of not listening to your users. Strong-arming only works as long as you are strong...

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#127

Post by protomyth »

mkjones wrote: post #41

Hey folks - I work on the Site Integrity team at Facebook. We work to keep people safe from scams, spam, fake accounts, and having their account taken over. We're always looking for ways to better understand how people represent themselves online and improve the design of our service. We look at the results of this kind of experiment in aggregate - the responses doesn't have any impact on the user account or that of…

First, shame on you and yours for asking people to rat on other people. Do you understand what could happen in the real world?

Next, I am a little sick of this "real name" business since Facebook and Google get it so wrong. I will give a couple of examples.

I grew up on a reservation in the US. Several of my friends have been given "Indian Names". Is that their real name or would Google / Facebook say that it's not valid because it is not a state issued ID. Is Google/Facebook combing the cultures of the world to pick out what they believe?

I do sysadmin work. Several people are named the same as parents / grandparents, but are known by other names. I use what people call them for their accounts not their official id. I would say I am right and have a better grasp of what their name is then someone who only uses official ID. Heck, would Google/Facebook take a tribal ID?

The cases of people trying to get away from a bad situation where Facebook / Google basically provides a target, not a safe place, are too numerous to iterate.

It isn't about the people using Facebook / Google. It is about your customers: the advertisers.

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#128

Post by kstenerud »

minikites wrote: post #116
FellowTraveler wrote: post #109

In Mexico, bloggers are disemboweled and strung up from bridges as a warning to others, by cartels. In Syria, government snipers murdered bloggers to silence them. In China, bloggers are imprisoned at hard labor. In the United States, the Federalist Papers were released anonymously in order to protect the lives of their authors. It is only the spoiled, rich and free countries who make such naive and irresponsible sta…

Wouldn't an even better question be: how do we build the kind of society where people can express their thoughts attached to their names without fear of reprisal?

A noble sentiment, but until it can be proven with solid evidence that such a thing is possible, it would be dangerous and irresponsible to force such an experiment upon people.

History is rife with examples of people imposing what they just KNEW was right upon others, with disastrous consequences.

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#129

Post by vidarh »

gaius wrote: post #96
brador wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rumors on Reddit that employers are asking for a Facebook presence pre-interview. What then?

I do not believe that for one second. As someone who has interviewed hundreds of candidates, there are many things a prospective employer really, really does not want to know. Religion, sexual orientation, veteran status, the list goes on... A company that finds out these things and rejects a candidate for any reason, even a legitimate technical one, is begging to be sued. That is what LinkedIn is for...

The laws about these things are there because at least some employers do want to find out these things. Some of those employers would love a more innocent-sounding way of finding out those details exactly to reduce the chance that the candidate will think they have grounds to sue.

Re: Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name

#130

Post by vidarh »

ivany wrote: post #80

Every time fb does something scummy, and people act surprised, I am surprised. They've proven themselves to have the morals of a used car dealer. Why would you trust them, or be surprised when they act untrustworthy? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." No?

Used car dealers presumably have that reputation because they still manage to fool people, otherwise the immoral ones would quickly go out of business. Part of the skill is to manage to convince people that things are different with you and them.
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