9 ms·

And in fact illegal in Germany and probably a hell lot of other places. I wonder if that gets enforced anytime soon.

by 1ris 11y ago

jawns 11y ago
I'm sincerely curious ... how is a social network like Facebook, which is built around connecting you with your real-world friends and acquaintances, supposed to work if you can't require users to identify themselves in a meaningful way? The little "people you may know" widget is really useful, because it shows me names I recognize from my offline life. If it's just a random stream of pseudonyms and online handles, there's no way I can find my long-lost friends and former co-workers and classmates.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  > I'm sincerely curious ... how is a social network like Facebook, which is built around connecting you with your real-world friends and acquaintances, supposed to work if you can't require users to identify themselves in a meaningful way? "Hey, Steve, what's your Facebook name?" "Goku35179." "Cool, I'm friending you." If your long-lost friends and former co-workers and classmates do not choose to be findable, that should be their decision to make. But that was always only a secondary use case for Facebook.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Well, they're not using the name you know because they don't want you or other casual acquaintances to find them.
  - jawns 11y ago
    It seems like this sort of privacy control could be put in place without resorting to pseudonyms. For instance: you register using your real name/"authentic identity", but you select a restrictive privacy option that says that your profile won't show up when people search for your name on Facebook; nobody can friend-request you; and all your posts and other info is visible to friends only. Voila, you now have a private profile, but the people whom you are friends with on Facebook don't have to create a user script that replaces your pseudonym with the name they actually know you by.
    - gorena 11y ago
      I'm pretty sure that you can already do all of this. I can't currently find the option to entirely de-list from search, but I thought I had it on before.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        You can de-list pretty much all information about you - without a publicly visible profile picture and your current location (city/country), you're pretty much impossible to find among others who share your first and last name. And yes, Facebook has enough users now that if you live in a big city, it's likely you'll find a few people sharing your first and last name in the same city.
        kuschku 11y ago
        Unless you have a very uncommon name, or live in a smaller city. I live in a 280k city and everyone with my last name in the phonebook is related to me, and on Facebook only me, my sister, my uncle and my cousin have an account. My full name exists less than a dozen times on Facebook in all of Germany, and the name does not occur anywhere in the world outside of northern Germany. This is quite an issue.
        dredmorbius 11y ago
        I know many people with highly distinctive, and, in a surprising number of cases, entirely unique names. Some rather surprisingly. Name plus city plus one other piece of data (approximate birth date, school(s) attended, former employer(s), a few other associates/contacts, profession) are very often enough to uniquely identify an individual, even with an otherwise common identity.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > (approximate birth date, school(s) attended, former employer(s), a few other associates/contacts, profession) are very often enough to uniquely identify an individual Yes, but you can set all of those to private and thus effectively delist yourself from Facebook Search. The only thing that really has to be public nowadays is your name.
- tjoff 11y ago
  The little "people you may know" widget is really useful It seems to be quite useful for generating spam-mails, I'll give it that...
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    I'm convinced these are the primary reason that gmail added the tabs to its interface, so we could all ignore the "Social" tab.
- greggman 11y ago
  I know several people online by pseudonyms only. If I wanted to add them on facebook I'd add their pseudonym. I also know people who don't go by their real name in real life. I know John's that go by Sean. I know Richard's that go by Dick. I know another Richard that goes by Greg. I suspect that 95% of his friends don't know his "real" name is Richard. I also know 2 Cyrils that go by Rocky and I suspect only their very closest friends and family know their real names are Cyril the 3rd and Cyril the 4th. I honestly don't understand why this matters to facebook. In the best case people make multiple accounts. One for friends and family, one for business, one for their sexy side, one for their hacker side, whatever. Now facebook gets to claim 4x the people and advertisers can better target ads to each account for each situation.
  - morgante 11y ago
    > I know several people online by pseudonyms only. Facebook is explicitly designed to primarily be a platform for "real world" relationships, not digital connections with strangers. There are plenty of other places on the web to talk to strangers. > I know another Richard that goes by Greg. Then that's the name he can and should use on Facebook. Facebook's policy is not that you have to use your legal name. It's that you should use the name you go by in everyday life, not a pseudonym you invented for online publishing.
    - JoshTriplett 11y ago
      > Then that's the name he can and should use on Facebook. Facebook's policy is not that you have to use your legal name. It's that you should use the name you go by in everyday life, not a pseudonym you invented for online publishing. Your statement contradicts Facebook's actual policies in practice, which in many cases attempt to mandate the use of a name backed by government-issued ID.
      - morgante 11y ago
        If you read some of the linked documents, they admit that their process isn't currently perfect and are working on finding better ways of verifying identity without depending on government IDs.
- bradjohnson 11y ago
  You're being obtuse. Ask your friend their facebook name or send them a friend request + message rather than requiring the service to verify with certainty that they are who they claim to be. How is it supposed to work? Exactly how it has for the majority of users for 10+ years. If your long-lost friends and former co-workers and classmates wanted you to find them then they would make it easier to do so.
- dnr 11y ago
  You can require users to identify themselves in a "meaningful way," even in the way that they go by to some of their friends and acquaintances. People aren't arguing that. The point is that the name that they go by doesn't have to have any relation to a _legal_ name. (You'd be surprised at how many people you know whose legal names are different than what they go by in real life.)

And in fact illegal in Germany and probably a hell lot of other places. I wonder if that gets enforced anytime soon.

by 1ris 11y ago

And in fact illegal in Germany and probably a hell lot of other places. I wonder if that gets enforced anytime soon.

jawns 11y ago

I'm sincerely curious ... how is a social network like Facebook, which is built around connecting you with your real-world friends and acquaintances, supposed to work if you can't require users to identify themselves in a meaningful way? The little "people you may know" widget is really useful, because it shows me names I recognize from my offline life. If it's just a random stream of pseudonyms and online handles, there's no way I can find my long-lost friends and former co-workers and classmates.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> I'm sincerely curious ... how is a social network like Facebook, which is built around connecting you with your real-world friends and acquaintances, supposed to work if you can't require users to identify themselves in a meaningful way? "Hey, Steve, what's your Facebook name?" "Goku35179." "Cool, I'm friending you." If your long-lost friends and former co-workers and classmates do not choose to be findable, that should be their decision to make. But that was always only a secondary use case for Facebook.
pjc50 11y ago
Well, they're not using the name you know because they don't want you or other casual acquaintances to find them.
- jawns 11y ago
  It seems like this sort of privacy control could be put in place without resorting to pseudonyms. For instance: you register using your real name/"authentic identity", but you select a restrictive privacy option that says that your profile won't show up when people search for your name on Facebook; nobody can friend-request you; and all your posts and other info is visible to friends only. Voila, you now have a private profile, but the people whom you are friends with on Facebook don't have to create a user script that replaces your pseudonym with the name they actually know you by.
  - gorena 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure that you can already do all of this. I can't currently find the option to entirely de-list from search, but I thought I had it on before.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      You can de-list pretty much all information about you - without a publicly visible profile picture and your current location (city/country), you're pretty much impossible to find among others who share your first and last name. And yes, Facebook has enough users now that if you live in a big city, it's likely you'll find a few people sharing your first and last name in the same city.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        Unless you have a very uncommon name, or live in a smaller city. I live in a 280k city and everyone with my last name in the phonebook is related to me, and on Facebook only me, my sister, my uncle and my cousin have an account. My full name exists less than a dozen times on Facebook in all of Germany, and the name does not occur anywhere in the world outside of northern Germany. This is quite an issue.
      - dredmorbius 11y ago
        I know many people with highly distinctive, and, in a surprising number of cases, entirely unique names. Some rather surprisingly. Name plus city plus one other piece of data (approximate birth date, school(s) attended, former employer(s), a few other associates/contacts, profession) are very often enough to uniquely identify an individual, even with an otherwise common identity.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > (approximate birth date, school(s) attended, former employer(s), a few other associates/contacts, profession) are very often enough to uniquely identify an individual Yes, but you can set all of those to private and thus effectively delist yourself from Facebook Search. The only thing that really has to be public nowadays is your name.
tjoff 11y ago
The little "people you may know" widget is really useful It seems to be quite useful for generating spam-mails, I'll give it that...
- jessaustin 11y ago
  I'm convinced these are the primary reason that gmail added the tabs to its interface, so we could all ignore the "Social" tab.
greggman 11y ago
I know several people online by pseudonyms only. If I wanted to add them on facebook I'd add their pseudonym. I also know people who don't go by their real name in real life. I know John's that go by Sean. I know Richard's that go by Dick. I know another Richard that goes by Greg. I suspect that 95% of his friends don't know his "real" name is Richard. I also know 2 Cyrils that go by Rocky and I suspect only their very closest friends and family know their real names are Cyril the 3rd and Cyril the 4th. I honestly don't understand why this matters to facebook. In the best case people make multiple accounts. One for friends and family, one for business, one for their sexy side, one for their hacker side, whatever. Now facebook gets to claim 4x the people and advertisers can better target ads to each account for each situation.
- morgante 11y ago
  > I know several people online by pseudonyms only. Facebook is explicitly designed to primarily be a platform for "real world" relationships, not digital connections with strangers. There are plenty of other places on the web to talk to strangers. > I know another Richard that goes by Greg. Then that's the name he can and should use on Facebook. Facebook's policy is not that you have to use your legal name. It's that you should use the name you go by in everyday life, not a pseudonym you invented for online publishing.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > Then that's the name he can and should use on Facebook. Facebook's policy is not that you have to use your legal name. It's that you should use the name you go by in everyday life, not a pseudonym you invented for online publishing. Your statement contradicts Facebook's actual policies in practice, which in many cases attempt to mandate the use of a name backed by government-issued ID.
    - morgante 11y ago
      If you read some of the linked documents, they admit that their process isn't currently perfect and are working on finding better ways of verifying identity without depending on government IDs.
bradjohnson 11y ago
You're being obtuse. Ask your friend their facebook name or send them a friend request + message rather than requiring the service to verify with certainty that they are who they claim to be. How is it supposed to work? Exactly how it has for the majority of users for 10+ years. If your long-lost friends and former co-workers and classmates wanted you to find them then they would make it easier to do so.
dnr 11y ago
You can require users to identify themselves in a "meaningful way," even in the way that they go by to some of their friends and acquaintances. People aren't arguing that. The point is that the name that they go by doesn't have to have any relation to a _legal_ name. (You'd be surprised at how many people you know whose legal names are different than what they go by in real life.)