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"This is reality. This is not theory. This is not assertions on Hacker News about how you must have something to hide if you want to keep something private. Thi

by jonesb6 11y ago

"This is reality. This is not theory. This is not assertions on Hacker News about how you must have something to hide if you want to keep something private. This is not about a man in a position of power and influence, who has industry privilege and respect for his wealth and status, at Google or Facebook saying that anonymity, or multiple online identities, demotes a 'lack of credibility’. We don’t care of you believe we’re credible, we just don’t want your willful ignorance to ruin our lives or get us killed. This isn’t about telling us that someone must have been targeting LGBT people that one time – because, wouldn’t you know, you seem to have a new reason every year. This isn’t about how many people were in your company’s Pride contingent, and it damn well isn’t about jerking around a group of drag queens – who cope with the suffering done by outing every day, and for fuck’s sake we’ve buried too many people we love – for one of your little press appeasement moments. This isn’t about YOUR beliefs, or what you think is best for us. This is about you making us live in fear. This is about the fact that you have had a chance to make it right repeatedly, and when faced with one kid saying no please don’t publish my birth name – you looked away, again. https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10204701697172621 https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1020470... " I normally avoid tumblr like the plague, but I chose to read this post. I encourage anyone who reads this to view the full post to get complete context. I thought it was raising some good points about Facebook's poor UX for account recovery.. until I got to this paragraph. I feel that while there may be many valid points to this article it is shrouded in certain biases and stigmas that dilute the overall positive message it was trying to make in the first place.

MichaelGG 11y ago
That link is strange. Person is using Facebook. They then voluntarily send Facebook their birth certificate and are bewildered and upset that Facebook used that info and corrected (read: edited) their profile? I really dislike Facebook but come on, you signed up for this. If you don't like Facebook's policies (and you shouldn't), then don't use it. What gives anyone the right to use someone else's service, then dictate how that service should work? And even supposing we create some new privacy law, how would that even work? The right to identify with any name? That can't be signed away at all?
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > corrected their profile You're either unintentionally or deliberately making the extremely offensive implication that Facebook knows better than their user about what identity they want to show to the world. Facebook has no business "correcting" any field of a user's profile based on a birth certificate. They have no business asking for a birth certificate. And they wonder why people refuse to send them "government ID" when that's what they do with it. Without even the slightest bit of hyperbole: this kind of screwing around with people can and does ruin lives.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    I didn't mean to imply that and I've changed my comment to reflect edited. I agree with you. Facebook should fuck off. Yet this is ultimately a big part of their platform, collecting data on users. This isn't much of a secret. If your ID puts lives at risk, why send the original version to a third party with a reputation for being against privacy? If for whatever reason you decide you must deal with them, at least submit fake docs.
- wanorris 11y ago
  The birth certificate was not the only form of ID that person sent. Facebook outed the past name of a transgender person -- that's never ok, and it's a problem taken very seriously in the transgender community. And yes, if you want, you could say that, well, trans people just shouldn't use Facebook, but given the position Facebook occupies in our society in practice, that's quite a statement. Just as important, in cases like this, the damage has already been done -- potentially quite serious -- be the time the user might choose to abandon Facebook over the problem. Forcing trans people to provide a bunch of ID to use the site, outing them to the world, and then saying whoops, sorry, but you can quit the site if you don't like it -- that's not ok. And your basic attitude seems to be that trans people's own fault for being different from most people, so of course they should expect to see problems or to just stay off of common services if they don't like those problems. This attitude is part of the problem -- basic human empathy seems like it would require a more considerate attitude than that.
mindslight 11y ago
It's a very odd style of communication - extremely passive aggressive coupled with feigned incredulity. Has anybody on HN ever brought up Eric Schmidt's quote to do anything other than bash it? Like "hey this guy is a real thought leader, we should listen to him."

by jonesb6 11y ago

MichaelGG 11y ago

That link is strange. Person is using Facebook. They then voluntarily send Facebook their birth certificate and are bewildered and upset that Facebook used that info and corrected (read: edited) their profile? I really dislike Facebook but come on, you signed up for this. If you don't like Facebook's policies (and you shouldn't), then don't use it. What gives anyone the right to use someone else's service, then dictate how that service should work? And even supposing we create some new privacy law, how would that even work? The right to identify with any name? That can't be signed away at all?

JoshTriplett 11y ago
> corrected their profile You're either unintentionally or deliberately making the extremely offensive implication that Facebook knows better than their user about what identity they want to show to the world. Facebook has no business "correcting" any field of a user's profile based on a birth certificate. They have no business asking for a birth certificate. And they wonder why people refuse to send them "government ID" when that's what they do with it. Without even the slightest bit of hyperbole: this kind of screwing around with people can and does ruin lives.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that and I've changed my comment to reflect edited. I agree with you. Facebook should fuck off. Yet this is ultimately a big part of their platform, collecting data on users. This isn't much of a secret. If your ID puts lives at risk, why send the original version to a third party with a reputation for being against privacy? If for whatever reason you decide you must deal with them, at least submit fake docs.
wanorris 11y ago
The birth certificate was not the only form of ID that person sent. Facebook outed the past name of a transgender person -- that's never ok, and it's a problem taken very seriously in the transgender community. And yes, if you want, you could say that, well, trans people just shouldn't use Facebook, but given the position Facebook occupies in our society in practice, that's quite a statement. Just as important, in cases like this, the damage has already been done -- potentially quite serious -- be the time the user might choose to abandon Facebook over the problem. Forcing trans people to provide a bunch of ID to use the site, outing them to the world, and then saying whoops, sorry, but you can quit the site if you don't like it -- that's not ok. And your basic attitude seems to be that trans people's own fault for being different from most people, so of course they should expect to see problems or to just stay off of common services if they don't like those problems. This attitude is part of the problem -- basic human empathy seems like it would require a more considerate attitude than that.

mindslight 11y ago

It's a very odd style of communication - extremely passive aggressive coupled with feigned incredulity. Has anybody on HN ever brought up Eric Schmidt's quote to do anything other than bash it? Like "hey this guy is a real thought leader, we should listen to him."