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What about people who don't want all of their real life relationships to be able to follow them online? For example, suppose someone has a restraining order aga

by jleader 11y ago

What about people who don't want all of their real life relationships to be able to follow them online? For example, suppose someone has a restraining order against a stalker, so they don't want to be findable online. Does that mean they're "not using Facebook the way it's meant to be used and should probably just leave it"? Online interaction has very different affordances than off-line interaction (for example, the ease of searching, the indefinite persistence of communications, etc.). Pretending that saying "Facebook should be just like real life" erases those differences is naive. There's a cost to allowing pseudonymity, but there's also a cost to its lack, it's just that the latter cost is distributed very unevenly.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
What about the people who do live single life, who do want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line? Why should we bow down and twist our system for the unfortunate minority that has a stalker problem? There are ways to deal with those that don't involve designing the entire experience around the special cases. So someone has a restraining order against a stalker. Then it should be enough for them to be able to send a scan of this order to Facebook to mark themselves exempt from real-name policy. There is need for such a problem to influence the way most people experience the service. Besides, what good does changing profile name do anyway? Even if you'd have a pseudonymous account, you still probably have your real-life friends added on Facebook. Any stalker worth the name will quickly find you by just browsing through friendlists of your friends (if you have a restraining order against him, it means he interacted with you enough to know some of your real-life friends). You can't solve this problem by changing the service mechanics without ruining it for everyone. This is a kind of matter the police is supposed to deal with, and this in fact is an argument for more cooperation between Facebook and law enforcement.
- taswal_tmanir 11y ago
  > What about the people who do live single life, who do want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line? Then they just drumroll use their real name? Heck, they could have even used a more easily recognizable nickname... before this policy, anyway.
- greenyoda 11y ago
  "What about the people who do live single life, who do want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line? Why should we bow down and twist our system for the unfortunate minority that has a stalker problem?" How would allowing somebody to use a pseudonym prevent you (and any others who want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line) from continuing to use your real-world identities?
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by jleader 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

What about the people who do live single life, who do want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line? Why should we bow down and twist our system for the unfortunate minority that has a stalker problem? There are ways to deal with those that don't involve designing the entire experience around the special cases. So someone has a restraining order against a stalker. Then it should be enough for them to be able to send a scan of this order to Facebook to mark themselves exempt from real-name policy. There is need for such a problem to influence the way most people experience the service. Besides, what good does changing profile name do anyway? Even if you'd have a pseudonymous account, you still probably have your real-life friends added on Facebook. Any stalker worth the name will quickly find you by just browsing through friendlists of your friends (if you have a restraining order against him, it means he interacted with you enough to know some of your real-life friends). You can't solve this problem by changing the service mechanics without ruining it for everyone. This is a kind of matter the police is supposed to deal with, and this in fact is an argument for more cooperation between Facebook and law enforcement.

taswal_tmanir 11y ago
> What about the people who do live single life, who do want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line? Then they just drumroll use their real name? Heck, they could have even used a more easily recognizable nickname... before this policy, anyway.
greenyoda 11y ago
"What about the people who do live single life, who do want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line? Why should we bow down and twist our system for the unfortunate minority that has a stalker problem?" How would allowing somebody to use a pseudonym prevent you (and any others who want their real-life relationships to follow them on-line) from continuing to use your real-world identities?

deleted 11y ago

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