The Real Name Fallacy • Hacker News Board

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#181

Post by randomdata » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #85

danmoz wrote: post #6

Real names is one thing, but I'd really like to see a "real age" system on the internet. That would make ignoring trolls -- who I suspect are frequently not old enough to drive -- a much easier task. It would be more akin to real life, if a 14 y/o tried to bully us in the street we'd laugh them off, but when they're anonymous on the internet it doesn't seem to occur to us that we may be dealing with a child.

I find that many people posting questionable views are rather >50yrs than <14yrs.

I think there is some truth to that. When you are young, you have really only had time to give serious consideration to one angle. As you get older, you are given time to start to ponder other angles, and will naturally want to discuss those other perspectives to see how they fit into the big picture.

The problem, however, is that those who only have one angle of perspective start to equate what they can think of and with what they believe. When someone suggests a different perspective (questionable ones included), it is assumed that is their belief, but in real world there is a clear separation between ideas and beliefs. Often the points are presented simply to understand the nature better.

After all, you don't really understand something unless you can argue several different points of view.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#182

Post by crystalmeph » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #179

crystalmeph wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expanding on the entry for those who have an unpopular political opinion - Take for example the current narrative that anyone who voted for Trump is a bigoted sexist homophobe. I know many people that did vote for Trump, and while I personally didn't vote for him (and it's telling that I feel I need to get that out of the way), I believe that many, if not the vast majority of people who voted for him did so either: -…

The list does include it: “ Anyone with political views (however mild) that may be unpopular or discriminated against ”.

Oh man, I thought I searched that list fully before posting. Thanks! I edited my post to be an expansion of that item, rather than a new addition.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#183

Post by macintux » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

stupidcar wrote: post #68

vog wrote: post #39

The real name discussion is as old as the Usenet, maybe even older. I find it strange to see it re-appearing again and again every few years for almost decades. Back then, the consensus was roughly: 1. If a community accepts pseudonyms, it is polite to use either your realname or an obvious pseudonym. 2. If a community places high value on realnames, either use your realname or a realname-sounding (i.e. non-obvious)…

Yes. People using real names on Usenet did not usually face a serious risk of being harassed and endangered in real life by an army of trolls: E.g. having their address, phone number and other private details stolen and publicly disseminated. Having armed police raid their house because someone has made a bogus 911 call. Having their utilities and back accounts cancelled because someone rang up using their details. H…

I can attest that there was a disturbed individual who lived not nearly far enough away for my comfort who came to the conclusion that I was evil and should die based on online interactions (MUDs) in ~1991.

As concerning as that was, it in no way compares to what women in particular face today online.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#184

Post by SolaceQuantum » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #166

virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you could die using your real name on an internet service, you are much better off not using that service at all Classic. "I'm not at risk, so we need not change anything. Your behavior is therefore at fault." > Use of a particular service or website is not a human right. Of course not. Would you say that being able to freely live your life without threat of death (as you most likely already do) should be? Allow…

> Classic. "I'm not at risk, so we need not change anything. Your behavior is therefore at fault." I'm sure you meant to say "Classic strawman:" because that's not at all what I said, or meant. Please actually respond to what I said and not whatever argument you heard other people make. I think it's demonstrably true that if using Facebook is an acute risk to your life, you are better off not using. That doesn't mean…

Actually I think Facebook's real name policy is a good example of a kind of subtle privilege. Specifically, if you don't have a western or "white" naming scheme than you are literally not considered to have a "real name" according to Facebook's algorithm. This has stirred up controversy before with Native American groups, LGBTQ people(the person who helped implement the Facebook genders had their own account suspended for "fake name"!), and and other groups. Facebook still hasn't put in place a policy for these people and for access to a significant social media to be denied due to assuming you have a "fake name" for not fitting in with a very narrow, very western white ideal(wasp?) of a name, is a pretty good example of a phenomenon that almost exclusively excludes minority demographics from a majority service or culture. Sure, it isn't something that will kill someone, but it kind of sucks and kind of leaves a demographic of people out in the cold and unable to participate in a big social media medium without faking or modifying their presented identity to fit in the conventions of a majority culture.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#185

Post by hashmal » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

syrrim wrote: post #169

hashmal wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like today this freedom profits more to awful people than to the good of society.

That depends on what you consider to be the alternative to free speech. If you take it as "no speaking allowed ever", than freedom of speech benefits all equally. If you take the alternative to be "everyone I don't like isn't allowed to speak" then free speech disproportionately aids those you dislike.

I don't consider any alternative…

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#186

Post by ubernostrum » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #166

virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you could die using your real name on an internet service, you are much better off not using that service at all Classic. "I'm not at risk, so we need not change anything. Your behavior is therefore at fault." > Use of a particular service or website is not a human right. Of course not. Would you say that being able to freely live your life without threat of death (as you most likely already do) should be? Allow…

> Classic. "I'm not at risk, so we need not change anything. Your behavior is therefore at fault." I'm sure you meant to say "Classic strawman:" because that's not at all what I said, or meant. Please actually respond to what I said and not whatever argument you heard other people make. I think it's demonstrably true that if using Facebook is an acute risk to your life, you are better off not using. That doesn't mean…

Call the police.

Call the police? You don't have enough proof, and shouting death threats at people isn't "harassment" anyway, it's just "free speech", so just grow a thicker skin already, and stop encouraging the death threats to be sent to you by being out in public like that!

You have a right not to be killed and you have a right to wash your clothes but you don't have a right to wash your clothes in that specific laundromat at that specific time.

Nice how you seem to have started to realize your logical conclusion was "but you don't have a right to wash your clothes without the threat of being killed", but tried to avoid it.

I know you are going to hate this, but why is it the first person to bring up race is usually someone saying that something is offensive or privilege?

A while back I criticized the "politics" "detox" on HN by saying that there are a lot of people who don't have the luxury of just saying "I'm tired of all this, I'll take a week off from it". They don't have that luxury because they're going to be bombarded with hate, and probably harassment and threats, no matter what they do.

Meanwhile there are a lot of other people who can simply take a week off: they don't face that constant bombardment, nobody will try to follow them around and keep forcibly exposing them to it, etc. This is what's meant by "privilege"; the people who can treat this as just something tiresome which can be safely ignored for a week are fundamentally living in a different world than the people who will be followed and threatened by it no matter what (because, let's face it, there are dedicated ragemobs out there which don't care if somebody stops reading one site, or going to one laundromat -- they'll track down phone numbers and home addresses and keep coming).

Getting the people who "take a week off" to understand that this is something unique to them as a class, something that others can't just do whenever they want, something that really is a luxury compared to the way others are forced by our society to live, is often very difficult, because when you live in that protected bubble you often are completely unaware of its existence. You don't face that kind of treatment, after all, and you think of yourself as average, so on average that kind of thing must be very rare or perhaps greatly exaggerated. Dragging people out of that bubble and making them confront the fact that no, it's not rare and no, it's not exaggerated (if anything, it's often understated), and yes, there are very clear patterns, based heavily in race and gender, which consistently appear to determine who gets the luxury of the bubble and who doesn't, is very hard, but necessary.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#187

Post by Tharre » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

If you're claiming that women, in general, today on the internet face worse than death threats, you're going to need to provide proof for that.

And anecdotal evidence is not going to cut it, most people with an online presence get their fair share of death threats at some point.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#188

Post by TheCoelacanth » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #149

janwillemb wrote: post #56

My real name doesn't uniquely identify me, because there are more people in the world with the same name. According to some web searching, I have already died a long time ago, I am a technical illustrator, I collect model trains, etc. So a "real name" could be compromising even if totally unjust

This is a very good point. Using real names doesn't 'reduce anonymity'. It 'reduces anonymity' for people with rare names and leaves those with common names nearly as anonymous as before.

A person's name is one of the strongest identifying factors there is. Even for people with common names, combining their name with other easily deduced information about them could easily lead to a unique identification.

For instance, if you looked through my HN or reddit comments, you could easily figure out roughly what area I live in, my occupation, my approximate age and many other pieces of information that would link back to my real identity. That information combined with my real name would uniquely identify me even if I had an extremely common name.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#189

Post by macintux » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 5:01 PM UTC

Tharre wrote: post #187

If you're claiming that women, in general, today on the internet face worse than death threats, you're going to need to provide proof for that. And anecdotal evidence is not going to cut it, most people with an online presence get their fair share of death threats at some point.

It seems indisputable that sustained harassment is a problem for some significant number of women online.

I'm asserting that such harassment is worse than what I faced back then, and that what I faced then was pretty unusual.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#190

Post by vog » Wed, Jan 04, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #176

NoGravitas wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I so often wish that web fora, social media, etc., all worked on a common protocol like a modernized Usenet so that we could use our choice of clients and have useful features like scorefiles. So much ink has been spilled about how Facebook's algorithm chooses what to show you, but imagine having complete control on the client side over both the algorithm, and the parameters tuning it. We used to have this, the only…

That's RSS. Too bad it was a mess of half-articles, intro paragraphs, fake submissions, and a very rare full article mixed in there somewhere.

Although there is some truth in this, this is not the full picture.

I believe that Usenet has been replaced mainly by mailing lists, not by blogs.

Having long-text conversations through blogs is possible, but mailing lists and (what's left of the) Usenet are better suited - the same way as IRC and instant messangers are better suited for chats than email, although you could chat via email as well.