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Your HN account is not linked to your real identity, unless you want it to be. Many people think that's a big difference.
by frossie 17y ago
Your HN account is not linked to your real identity, unless you want it to be. Many people think that's a big difference.
- ivankirigin 17y agoChanging your name on facebook is easy. I hear it is common when high school students apply for college. The site works best with your real social graph, imho, but it is easy to enhance your calm re: privacy
- pak 17y agoAll name changes have to be approved before they go into effect, at least from what I remember. They actually have human reviewers approve every change. If the name seems fake, they deny the request. I read an article once about people with fake-sounding but real last names like Batman, etc. having their name change requests denied, and needing to convince Facebook employees of their own identity. They have gone to great lengths to ensure their data on you is tied to a real name.
- chronomex 17y agoYes, they confirm name changes, but I don't think they're very strict about it. Some anecdotal evidence: My Facebook middle name is Emacs. It used to be 'emacs'. I have three friends who share a Facebook account, which is probably against the TOS anyway. They change the name rather frequently. Last month they were named Krishanu Coke Zero Austin Steve.
- code_duck 17y agoI tried signing up for Facebook with the name 'Jimmy the Greek' and it was denied. However, they then accepted 'Jimmy teh Greeko'.
- pak 17y agoMy guess would be that they have a blacklist of well-known celebrity and fictional character names that gets your request flagged for further review. Misspellings might avoid triggering the blacklist.
- tokenadult 17y agoThey actually have human reviewers approve every change. If the name seems fake, they deny the request. I have a number of quite odd and very apparent pseudonyms among my Facebook friends. Most are married women with children, who have some well known reasons to desire more online privacy than young single men. I don't know how those names were approved. My entirely real name on Facebook took a long time to get approved when I initially opened my Facebook account, which I thought was quite silly.
- code_duck 17y agoYour facebook account is not linked to your real identity, either, unless you want it to be.
- nopassrecover 17y agoIf it's not then it's closed as soon as it's discovered though.
- code_duck 17y agoWhy, is there some reason I can't just post vague messages which don't link me to any particular, identifiable human? How would they know?
- nopassrecover 17y agoI'm just saying that if they do find out you're not who you pretend to be then your account will be closed. A primary reason for this would be to prevent identity theft (e.g. accounts that appear to be a real person and add a group of people who all work together/study together/went to the same school).
- flipbrad 16y agoit's my identity, though. real or otherwise.