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The Real Name Fallacy

blog.coralproject.net

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Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#221

Post by eternalban »

NoGravitas wrote: post #212
eternalban wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A few months ago, worrying about such things seemed kind of silly to me. Now, I think I understand the need better I am assuming you are now concerned because of the incoming administration. I find this puzzling. Do you remember this character? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashcroft

GP might not be old enough for John Ashcroft to be relevant to them. I, on the other hand, remember Ed Meese. We all become aware when we are ready to become aware.

I remember the name and face but had forgotten the details. Here is a nice quote courtesy of Ed Meese's wiki page:

    Suspects who are innocent of a crime should [have Miranda rights]. 
    But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of 
    a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime,
    then he is not a suspect.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#222

Post by forgottenpass »

wfunction wrote: post #4

Thing is, if I had to guess, I would say Facebook doesn't attempt to make you use your real name to make the community better in the first place. That's almost certainly just its pretext for everyone who's willing to fall for it. Most likely, it does that to make sure it can identify you globally and uniquely for commercial/advertising purposes. Think about how much more valuable your online identity is if you go sol…

>I would say Facebook doesn't attempt to make you use your real name to make the community better in the first place.

Believing the line of reasoning that real names lead to better communities is like believing a blog post explaining why open office plans are uniformly better for worker productivity/morale/whatever.

At the end of the day there are probably some true believers, but they're just useful idiots to people with ulterior motives.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#223

Post by SolaceQuantum »

dagenleg wrote: post #209
lostphilosopher wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've dug into the meaning of "rights" and I'm with you. No one has the "right" to use Facebook. But, you lose me when you don't draw the connection to "privilege." While I don't have the "right" to use Facebook I have the "privilege" of using it, and at no point feeling unwelcome or un-catered to. That feeling comes not because of my merit or choices, but because I'm a "check all the boxes" white dude.

Oh dear. Is there any corner of the world safe from you privilege hunting types? It's funny how all your activism starts and ends with feelings and what you feel. The sad thing about your self-flagellation is that you forget that people outside of the West (the majority of the world population, by the way) do no really care about the "privileges" that you so righteously seek out behind every corner. They care about v…

I think this idea that the concept of privilege only exists in the West is a disservice to the struggle of activists around the world. There are professors in Japan discussing Japans racism and xenophobia, and privilege structures unique to their culture. There are discussions in South Africa over how apartheid has affected the culture there and structures of privilege and racism there. China's literary scene has exploded in examining structures of privilege along class lines[1].

There are activists internationally examining and discussing how privilege and systems of oppression affect their individual cultures. It would make sense that a primarily English-speaking site would explore privilege in context of English-speaking cultures, usually described as "western". This may look like there is no discussion outside of "western" spheres when this is incorrect. This is the kind of not-realizing-the-greater-context in which I believe privilege thrives in.

[1]'Folding Beijing' by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu, and winner for Hugo 2016 Best Novelette http://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#224

Post by anigbrowl »

pc86 wrote: post #121
stupidcar wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked whether something had substantially changed, not qualitatively. A change in degree can still be a substantial change. It's the difference between living in a city with one murder a year, and one hundred murders a day. To the individual killed, the distinction is irrelevant, but in terms of the effect on others, and on the measures taken by the society as a whole, it's everything. But I would also argue ther…

If the second city has ~36500 times the population, then it's not a change in degree at all. City A is no more or less safe than City B, nor is the police force any more or less effective, etc. There are billions of people on the internet now. How many were using it in the days of Usenet?

By a frequentist analysis, which omits complicating factors and may lead to inaccurate conclusions. One obvious thing that a frequentist analysis misses is that the larger the population, the bigger the size of the gang you can summon to harass someone. Getting trolled by 3 or 4 people on Usenet was annoying, but today someone can find their Twitter feed flooded by hundreds of people. The frequency of the harassing activity in the population as a whole may be the same, but the potential impact on a single individual is very different (and don't go trying to tell me it's better because the number of trolls is rising slower than the general population in this made-up example).

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#225

Post by lisper »

Here's a data point: I was working at JPL when it instituted an internal usenet newsgroup (this was the mid-90s) for discussing work-related issues. It was initially anonymous to encourage people to speak frankly. Almost immediately it devolved into a cesspool of insults and epithets. It was my first experience with this phenomenon, and at the time I was shocked by it. (Nowadays, of course, this sort of thing is just business and usual on the internet.)

After a month or two it got so bad that management decided to remove the anonymity. The tone of the group changed literally overnight, and people started behaving in a civil manner. The sad fact of the matter is that if you want human beings to behave, you have to be able to hold them accountable.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#226

Post by anigbrowl »

pc86 wrote: post #120
stupidcar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you could die using your real name on an internet service, you are much better off not using that service at all, especially if they require that you use your real name. Use of a particular service or website is not a human right. If your particular situation is such that it's unsafe or you need to violate TOS/regulations/laws by using a service... don't.

It is a human right to be able to go about your business without having your safety threatened. If that business requires use of some internet services as a matter of basic economic survival, then you do have a right to use them safely and people who interfere with that are infringing upon your rights.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#227

Post by ameister14 »

lisper wrote: post #225

Here's a data point: I was working at JPL when it instituted an internal usenet newsgroup (this was the mid-90s) for discussing work-related issues. It was initially anonymous to encourage people to speak frankly. Almost immediately it devolved into a cesspool of insults and epithets. It was my first experience with this phenomenon, and at the time I was shocked by it. (Nowadays, of course, this sort of thing is just…

There is also a difference between anonymity where no profile or pseudo-identity is created and one where you have an identity that you carry with you as you use a service or forum.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#228

Post by anigbrowl »

mirimir wrote: post #72
bad_user wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was that back then you didn't have service providers with lock-in on a market, like today's Facebook and the Internet was only a thing for techies, whereas nowadays more than half of the world's population has access to the Internet. Can you just not use Facebook? There are obviously only 3 choices: (1) not use it, but then you won't have an account where all of your friends are; (2) use it with your real…

There's a fourth option: use Facebook with your real name, and separately with fake name(s). For the real-name account, carefully manage "friends" to avoid problems with family, friends, coworkers, etc. Make sure that there's no leakage between your real-name account and fake-name accounts, or among fake-name accounts. Practice good compartmentalization OpSec.

That's just a special case of (3). Essentially you're saying 'spend a lot of time and effort on security, much of which may be arbitrarily zeroed by your counterparty.' That's a shitty proposition, because it's basically offloading the cost of doing that onto someone who is at a comparative disadvantage, and allowing FB to exploit the resulting economic gap - indeed, this is their business model.

Naturally people want to use FB because it's convenient to be able to communicate with and make new friends through a consistent convenient interface. FB has a comparative advantage in terms of privacy protection, anonymity etc., simply because it has the data centers and the database and the developers - there's little additional technical cost to going with one policy over another (although there may be a substantial business cost). There's a relatively high technical cost for the individual user in doing all this compartmentalization etc. so most people don't bother - partly because they don't want to pay it and partly because they don't know the business value of the information they are giving out about themselves, and can't easily estimate the economic impact of their decisions.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#229

Post by CocaKoala »

Tharre wrote: post #215
Frondo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're arguing in good faith right now. This sounds an awful lot like sealioning. (For those who aren't familiar with it, http://wondermark.com/1k62/ is the origin of the term.)

I have no idea what you're trying to point out (or what that comic is about).

He's pointing out that you're trying to force an argument to happen, even when it's clear that the other party doesn't really want to engage in an argument. Additionally, you're doing it in a fairly obnoxious manner.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#230

Post by gertef »

lisper wrote: post #225

Here's a data point: I was working at JPL when it instituted an internal usenet newsgroup (this was the mid-90s) for discussing work-related issues. It was initially anonymous to encourage people to speak frankly. Almost immediately it devolved into a cesspool of insults and epithets. It was my first experience with this phenomenon, and at the time I was shocked by it. (Nowadays, of course, this sort of thing is just…

and people also became afraid to express themselves candidly. the solution is moderation and leadership, not forcing identity. but that is expensive, so owners don't want it.
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