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The Real Name Fallacy

blog.coralproject.net

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Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#41

Post by mjolk »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #24
mjolk wrote: post #9

While I agree that expecting users to use real names is a bad thing, this knocked the air out of me: > In societies including the US where violence and mistreatment of women, people of color, and marginalized people is common, we can expect similar problems in people’s digital interactions [1] > [1] Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kate M. Miltner. #MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny. Feminist Med…

> I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? Or are you basing this on "feelings > reality", as you put it? > Further, it's getting rather tiring that the US is always listed as an example when countries/societies exist without leg…

> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have evidence that women and ethnic and sexual minorities are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment?

The FBI gathers data on bias in crimes[0]; I reject that the issues are specifically "common" in the US because they constitute a small number of the total crimes committed[1] and are taken very seriously (harsher sentences and being racist/sexist has severe social stigma). The article's use of "common" is an attempt at alleged certainty, much like saying "we all know that developers.." to avoid having to actually back the claim.

> The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything.

That's not the argument here. It's stating that it's tiring that the US is always singled out as if it's somehow _specifically_ bad. Strong people fought for equal protection of people under the law in the US, so why is it consistently picked as an example over, say, Pakistan or Mauritania? Even if I was to concede that calling someone a "bitch" on Twitter falls under "violence and mistreatment" (as is suggested by the Coral Project's cited source), why should US shoulder all of the blame for the global site?

[0] https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015-hate-crime-statistics-... [1] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#42

Post by mjolk »

grzm wrote: post #14
mjolk wrote: post #9

While I agree that expecting users to use real names is a bad thing, this knocked the air out of me: > In societies including the US where violence and mistreatment of women, people of color, and marginalized people is common, we can expect similar problems in people’s digital interactions [1] > [1] Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kate M. Miltner. #MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny. Feminist Med…

A post by ESR was even flagged off HN because its message was that he expected evidence to back claims of harassment There's at least one other reason users may have flagged it, and in line with the site guidelines: it doesn't sufficiently satisfy intellectual curiosity, and at the same time has a high likelihood of producing little to no constructive discussion while also being very susceptible to flamewars. That do…

That's fair, but the article was creating (mostly) civil discussion and it was on the topic of perceived bias in open source software communities. I can't not think that it was shot down by someone to defend an ideology.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#43

Post by jacobush »

danmoz wrote: post #15
wfunction wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory at least, you're supposed to look at what is being said rather than who is saying it... Not at all claiming I always do that myself, but some food for thought.

That's true, but I'm thinking of situations where there is no context other than pure abuse. I wonder if Charlotte Dawson would have taken her own life if she found out that the majority of trolls telling her to kill herself were kids living in their parents basement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dawson

I think that to harass efficiently it helps to have more years. Grownups can be mean in such intricate ways compared to what children can.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#44

Post by LoSboccacc »

kome wrote: post #33
LoSboccacc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do we? I'm out of the loop besides major news because there's almost no hope left, so I missed it. who's pushing it this time?

http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/controlli-d...

ugh, Mentana, tu quoque

I don't know where this "ministry of truths" resurgences come from but really needs to be stopped. between this and Grillo promoting a 'randomized popular college vote' to determine "The Truth", situation is increasingly scary for freedom of speech.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#45

Post by bad_user »

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)…

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 name and lose your privacy, with obvious risks, like your employer or relatives being able to find you on Facebook or (3) use Facebook with a fake name and risk being banned for breach of contract, with all of your investments in it lost.

Lets not pretend that today's Internet is the same as the Internet from the eighties and nineties. Your father and grandma weren't on Usenet.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#46

Post by TillE »

KVFinn wrote: post #21

In my experience it eliminates a particular kind of drive-by trolling, but leaves the other kinds unaffected. Only constant moderation really keeps it out.

Probably. I've definitely never seen a good Facebook comments section on any site. Nasty arguments and low-grade garbage. Real names simply don't stop most people from being vile on the internet.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#47

Post by usrusr »

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…

Targeted advertising to pseudonyms would be no less targeted, because it is based on what I do with the logged-in browser, not on the sequence of characters in the name field. I really don't think I get spillover ads targeted at the dozen or so people who share my firstname lastname.

But what I do with the logged-in browser is influenced a lot by wether it is a community with a real name expectation our wether it is a pseudonym playground. The virtual place where we connect with people we meet while parenting our enjoying an expensive outdoor hobby provides infinitely more valuable targeting opportunities than the places we go to indulge in shamefully inappropriate jokes. Making the community better is not a pretext for pro-advertising features, it is a key pro-advertising feature itself.

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#48

Post by mjolk »

inlined wrote: post #27
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? Or are you basing this on "feelings > reality", as you put it? > Further, it's getting rather tiring that the US is always listed as an example when countries/societies exist without leg…

> The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything. Recently learned the awesome names for this fallacy. "Tu quoque"[1] is the general name. Whataboutism[2] is the awesome term for its use in soviet propeganda. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I don't think I was committing a logical fallacy -- I took exception to the article author's attempt at establishing alleged certainty, especially using relativistic terms.

In any case, based on your mention of learning new fallacy names, you'll probably like this site: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Re: The Real Name Fallacy

#50

Post by doppel »

Twisell wrote: post #29
syphilis2 wrote: post #26

One of the great benefits from an online alias is being able to build relationships in a community while retaining the ability to cease (and resume) that contact at any time. The alias may as well represent its own individual, with minimal risk to the underlying user(s) as to its reputation. It's a huge relief and a boon to expression to be able to communicate without worrying about the reputation of a sole "real nam…

And this is actually even more reflecting of real life interactions. In all the activity circles you go IRL most of your acquaintances know only your first name. Only people you really bond with usually known your last name. So why on earth should every person you talk to online should be provided your full name and possibly start stalking you?

Taken even further, even in real life you are likely to have different circles of friends and colleagues - it is likely that you behave differently for each group (knowingly or unknowingly), because they each have an established way of behaving, mannerisms, etc. Just think of an inappropriate joke that one group might find hilarious and another would be appalled by.

The internet is no different, except we are now expected to behave in a singular way in a group conversation of 500 people.

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