8 ms·
Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy
- pmlnr 11y agoWhy? Anyone who disagrees with this had either already left Facebook or use something else for the communication, which, in my opinion, is good.
- viraptor 11y agoYou're projecting a bit, I think. I disagree with their policy even though it doesn't affect me personally. For many communities there's simply no alternative to FB right now. Why should I just expect affected people to leave instead of expecting the problem to be fixed?
- pmlnr 11y ago> For many communities there's simply no alternative to FB right now. Make one. Work on it. Why would someone else make it for them/you for 'free'?
- viraptor 11y agoWhy should I? That alternative is FB, without bad rules. Facebook already won with features and has approximately all the people already registered. From the communities I know, nobody would consider switching to a different service. It would just be a worse FB with fewer people on it.
- pmlnr 11y agoIt sounds like you've never been a part of a forum or similar a decade ago. It's usually much better with less people. For the why: because a, monopoly is bad; b, Facebook is broken on too many levels.
- viraptor 11y agoYes I have. It works for tech communities. It works for topic discussions. It works for many things. What it would completely fail for is a worldwide group of people who have a lot of personal connections between them, organise and announce semi-public events (100s a year), have local groups (1000s), and share a lot of information within one of those relationships. Also ~100% of them are already on FB and successfully do all of the above. So again, no. Monopoly is bad, Facebook is bad/good depending on use case, sure. But this is not possible to migrate to a forum. Very simplified situation exists for developers - with the personal part reduced and with very limited local groups you have this information spread over twitter / local boards / meetup.com / etc. anyway. If I wanted to check events in some area, it's actually not trivial. It would be also a complete pain to centralise. You know what I do for the other use case? Post to facebook, share it in a group that's approximately in the same area in the world, and I get all information I need in a few minutes / hours: links to specific groups, specific events, and if needed I've got FB messenger contact to people who posted it.
- PostOnce 11y agoFacebook was made large by the fact that you can find people you used to know, or haven't spoken to in a while, or aren't that close to. You can find anyone, it's easy. Removing the real names policy does away with that, and I would say seriously threaten's facebook's business/growth/future. If you don't know your old girlfriend or your cousin or your highschool bandmate's username, how are you going to get in touch with them? I'm not saying that's a bad thing, or that I think facebook should have real names, but I'm saying that I seriously doubt they are going to change that policy because it'd cost them too much in the long term. EDIT: People, I understand the arguments against real names. Facebook's counterargument is money. Which argument do you think they support and will listen to? Downvoting me is crass, I'm not even stating a position, I'm just stating the obvious reasons for Facebook's continuing denial of a chosen-name policy.
- steckerbrett 11y agoI don't think that's an issue, they have enough data that as soon as you can find one person they can probably extrapolate the rest of them. It's kind of creepy but whatever.
- MaysonL 11y agoA relative of a friend of mine uses a pseudonym to escape harassment they suffered due to being gay. They're Facebook friend of their parents, their sibs, and other relatives.
- avolcano 11y agoGood, I'm glad this is getting traction. Seems like every week I read about another trans person or someone who uses a psuedonym in day-to-day life getting "reported" by some asshole and getting locked out of their Facebook, and Facebook seems uninterested in fixing the issue. Honestly, it's heartbreaking, as someone who uses many Facebook open source projects, to talk to engineers at Facebook and find out how many don't know this is even an issue. It's certainly kept me from responding to FB recruitment emails.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoIt doesn't just affect people with pseudonyms, too. If you're from some ethnic background which has unusual names, if you have some uncommon or fake-sounding real name, you might also get tripped up.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoFacebook Name Police: Native American Names Aren't 'Authentic' Enough - http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/02/13/facebook-name-police-native-american-names-arent-authentic-enough-159188 http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/02/13/faceboo...
- alimbada 11y ago> It's certainly kept me from responding to FB recruitment emails. Maybe respond with your concerns?
- bad_user 11y agoDo you think they haven't heard these concerns?
- alimbada 11y agoIf they hear them from someone they're actively attempting to recruit, I expect it would carry more weight. At the very least it will make FBs HR department aware of the issue. As the parent commenter said, there are a lot of people at FB who aren't even aware of these issues.
- abluecloud 11y agoThey should just re-introduce the ability that they removed about a year or two ago: ability to remove your name from being searchable on facebook, unless the user knows your actual facebook.com/url.
- vidarh 11y agoThat's insufficient for all the people that do want to be identifiable by the name they go by amongst people they do want contact with.
- mahouse 11y agoThat's stupid. If you use a credible pseudonym, they will never ask you for your ID. If they ask you for your ID, send a fake one. It has worked for me three times. They were laughably bad and they accepted them.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago> If you use a credible pseudonym, they will never ask you for your ID. Unless you're trans. Unless that 'pseudonym' is actually your real name because you come from a non-majority ethnic background.
- steckerbrett 11y agoI know someone with the surname "body" who has never been able to make an account because it sounds like "No Body".
- ino 11y agoJust the fact that facebook asks an official ID is maddening. They aren't a governmental agency. In Portugal the official ID card has your SS number, fiscal number, and health number. I don't want facebook to know any of those, seriously.
- glormph 11y agoSomeone mentioned that FB may want to be the world's identity broker. I personally hate the idea, but if that's the case, they'll hardly give up their policy. Governmental ID brokers have exceptions to protect someone's identity. If FB wants to be taken seriously they should implement similar possibilities. The next one will then be please send us a police report stating you are in need of etc etc.
- DanBC 11y agoBut Facebook's policy ignore the law in many countries. In England I can use any name I choose so long as I don't have the intent to deceive. I am legally allowed to be Ann and Bob simultaneously. (admittedly that's a bit trickier when organisations "copper-bottom" regulations around identity, eg money laundering "Know your customer" regs.)
- glormph 11y agoI am not well versed in law at all but that sounds pretty fair. I guess FB doesnt behave as an org you can apply with whatever name you want, but more as a gov which wants to keep track of its citizens. They can also do so because their members have few alternatives, just like citizens of countries.
- Jare 11y agoImagine the uproar if Facebook forced you to have a profile pic that clearly shows your face, the sort that photo ids require.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoOh yeah. Just looking at my chat contact sidebar (is that what it's called? the thing on the right of the Facebook homepage), 3/15 friends aren't using their face in their profile pic.
- jevgeni 11y agoWhy bother with all of this? Why not just stop using Facebook?
- Nilzor 11y agoThis. It's not like being on Facebook is a UN-sanctioned human right.
- jevgeni 11y agoOr a particularly enjoyable experience the last two years.
- pmlnr 11y agoI asked the same question; I got downvoted.
- jevgeni 11y agoI've got some negative votes as well. It could be that people here are REALLY into Facebook. Or there might be a slight chance that some of the users here work for FB and are slightly partial...
- nevinera 11y ago"Global coalition tells Exxon to Reduce Gas Prices, and suggests that Raisin Bran and Snickers are also Too Expensive"
- Aqueous 11y agoThe whole reason Facebook has any enforceable standards as a community is because of that policy. The community standards uphold themselves because there are be real-life social consequences for saying something hateful / sexually harassing somebody / posting pornography - the list goes on. Having to use your real name on Facebook is what keeps you accountable. If you want to see Facebook turn into a sewer, get rid of the real names policy. Witness 4Chan and YouTube comments. They should make exceptions for certain cases, such as when someone is avoiding harassment, or has changed names due to being transgender, or lives under an authoritarian regime. But they can and should do so on a case-by-case basis.
- trajing 11y agoNo, no. Not having your given or legal name associated with your online presence does not automatically make you a troll, nor does having them associated make people less likely to watch what they say. For example, me. I've been very careful about what I say even though my real name and my alias are not associated. I care about what people think about trajing, even if they can't trace it back to me in real life. As for the second part, I've read facebook comments in political articles. I will never make that mistake again. I don't use facebook, but I understand where these people are coming from and support them.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- cognivore 11y agoThis totally piques my "don't tread on me." Facebook is a service you don't have to use. They're an American company. No one should be telling them to now run service, U.S. or otherwise. I hope Zuck flips them the bird and then ignores them. And this is from a person who doesn't have a Facebook account and generally doesn't care for them as a company.