25 ms·

The Real Name Fallacy

318 points by maxt 10y ago

kome 10y ago
Very thoughtful article... we are having this debate now in Italy and this would need to be translated.
- LoSboccacc 10y ago
  do we? I'm out of the loop besides major news because there's almost no hope left, so I missed it. who's pushing it this time?
  - kome 10y ago
    http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/controlli-dannosi-e-inutili-basterebbe-vietare-lanonimato/ http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/controlli-d...
    - LoSboccacc 10y ago
      ugh, Mentana, tu quoque I don't know where this "ministry of truths" resurgences come from but really needs to be stopped. between this and Grillo promoting a 'randomized popular college vote' to determine "The Truth", situation is increasingly scary for freedom of speech.
aestetix 10y ago
Been at this battle for a few years. Check out https://nymrights.org/ https://nymrights.org/ (and https://nymrights.org/nymrights-info-flyer/ https://nymrights.org/nymrights-info-flyer/ for the info flyer)
wfunction 10y ago
Thing is, if I had to guess, I would say Facebook doesn't attempt to make you use your real name to make the community better in the first place. That's almost certainly just its pretext for everyone who's willing to fall for it. Most likely, it does that to make sure it can identify you globally and uniquely for commercial/advertising purposes. Think about how much more valuable your online identity is if you go solely by Jon Doe rather than by foolover123, bar456fudger, and nighthowler789?
- blauditore 10y ago
  I doubt this, since Facebook doesn't seem to care much about fantasy names. They get most interest data about you from within FB (what pages and posts you like etc.) and from pages across the internet you visit through like buttons embedded there (even without clicking them). So there's a lot of relevant meta data directly linked to your account and no need for them to know your real name.
  - wfunction 10y ago
    Does use of this [1] information not include attempting to match up the user's real-life name with his/her Facebook name? [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/494750870625830 https://www.facebook.com/help/494750870625830
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    There was a good article on pro publica [0] (who I trust very much) about facebook's use of offline data source, and that presumably needs to be linked by real name [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-user...
  - thanatropism 10y ago
    Last time I tried to create an alt account they insisted on a phone number, though.
    - blauditore 10y ago
      That's more about uniqueness than using your real name. Spam and fraud accounts are a rather big problem, and this is one way of raising the barrier for creating those. And yeah, Facebook surely has other motivation too, like not having your metadata scattered across multiple accounts. But I still don't see how knowing your real name would make a strong difference to them. I have quite a few FB friends that use obvious fantasy names (mostly for privacy reasons I think), and they don't seem to be banned or forced to change it.
danmoz 10y ago
Real names is one thing, but I'd really like to see a "real age" system on the internet. That would make ignoring trolls -- who I suspect are frequently not old enough to drive -- a much easier task. It would be more akin to real life, if a 14 y/o tried to bully us in the street we'd laugh them off, but when they're anonymous on the internet it doesn't seem to occur to us that we may be dealing with a child.
- wfunction 10y ago
  In theory at least, you're supposed to look at what is being said rather than who is saying it... Not at all claiming I always do that myself, but some food for thought.
  - danmoz 10y ago
    That's true, but I'm thinking of situations where there is no context other than pure abuse. I wonder if Charlotte Dawson would have taken her own life if she found out that the majority of trolls telling her to kill herself were kids living in their parents basement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dawson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dawson
    - aw3c2 10y ago
      What makes you think that they were kids? I highly doubt that.
    - jacobush 10y ago
      I think that to harass efficiently it helps to have more years. Grownups can be mean in such intricate ways compared to what children can.
- barking 10y ago
  You sound quite young and naive. How old are you? :)
- pjc50 10y ago
  Coincidentally the UK government is trying to impose age verification on websites.
blauditore 10y ago
I think it largely depends on the specific community and people in it. While some try to use online anonymity as an outlet to say and do things they wouldn't dare on Facebook or IRL, others seem to want a reality-like reputation around their username/account. A large portion is probably caused simply by community rules; just see /b/ and HN... And to be fair, I've hardly ever seen serious insults on Facebook, but been called dipshit on anonymous platforms regularly. But again, this could be due to community standards.
- Inconel 10y ago
  >I've hardly ever seen serious insults on Facebook Every once in a while curiosity and boredom get the better of me and I visit ESPN or some other mainstream news site that uses FB profiles for the comments section and I almost always walk away shocked at the kind of comments people are willing to post while directly linking to their real name and profile, often containing their place of employment. Respectfully, if you haven't seen serious insults on FB, or at least on sites using FB profile logins, you haven't been looking hard enough.
  - dasboth 10y ago
    I've seen similar and can't help but wonder if at least some of those people don't realise that's happening. Maybe they see the "login with Facebook" as a convenience without knowing their names, jobs etc. will be visible. The rest probably just don't care.
  - blauditore 10y ago
    Ok, I was thinking of conversations among people who know each other (i.e. met at least once). Yes, I've seen bad language, heavily racist rants and such, but always from people who would do the same thing in real life, and mainly against third parties (politicians, celebrities, religions, ...). But I'm not extremely active though and hardly ever see large comment threads, like from ESPN.
- mattnewton 10y ago
  I honestly don't see this on Facebook. I have made very few connections there but I am routinely surprised by the stuff that comes out of people I went to high school with. Not usually because I find it personally offensive, but because I cannot believe someone is okay with having that out there linked to their real name.
mjolk 10y ago
While I agree that expecting users to use real names is a bad thing, this knocked the air out of me: > In societies including the US where violence and mistreatment of women, people of color, and marginalized people is common, we can expect similar problems in people’s digital interactions [1] > [1] Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kate M. Miltner. #MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1):171-174, January 2016. I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US, even if "violence and mistreatment" is broadly defined as people acting rudely on the internet. A post by ESR was even flagged off HN because its message was that he expected evidence to back claims of harassment, which is a microcosm of the trend of "feelings > reality". This is absolutely ludicrous and I'm surprised Mozilla is funding this junk. Further, it's getting rather tiring that the US is always listed as an example when countries/societies exist without legal protection for all races/genders and where slavery and forced labor is still legal.
- grzm 10y ago
  A post by ESR was even flagged off HN because its message was that he expected evidence to back claims of harassment There's at least one other reason users may have flagged it, and in line with the site guidelines: it doesn't sufficiently satisfy intellectual curiosity, and at the same time has a high likelihood of producing little to no constructive discussion while also being very susceptible to flamewars. That doesn't mean that the topic shouldn't be discussed, just that it's unlikely to be constructively and civilly discussed on HN.
  - mjolk 10y ago
    That's fair, but the article was creating (mostly) civil discussion and it was on the topic of perceived bias in open source software communities. I can't not think that it was shot down by someone to defend an ideology.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  > I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? Or are you basing this on "feelings > reality", as you put it? > Further, it's getting rather tiring that the US is always listed as an example when countries/societies exist without legal protection for all races/genders and where slavery and forced labor is still legal. The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything.
EGreg 10y ago
I wrote about this before as well, from a technical point of view: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114
ChrisNorstrom 10y ago
I really don't want to say this but, the real names policy does help in terms of trolling behavior for certain communities. When TechCrunch switched over from Disqus to Facebook comments, the amount of trash and trolling was immediately reduced and stayed at a minimum permanently. A lot of the media outlets (Motherboard, Vice, NPR) who've disabled commenting altogether were using Disqus. I've noticed media outlets that use Facebook comments seem to still have commenting turned on. I know anonymity in comment systems is as touchy a subject for internet freedom lovers as gun rights are for people in high crime neighborhoods. Those that hate them have already made up their mind and won't look at contradicting evidence, those that love them have already made up their mind and won't look at contradicting evidence. The truth seems to lies somewhere in the middle. So "Real Names Policy" definitely has it's place. Maybe not everywhere, but definitely in some communities.
- rntz 10y ago
  Perhaps the common cause here was disqus, rather than anonymity per se? Does anyone know if there any features of disqus that might encourage trolling? Also, I've certainly seen plenty of flaming in FB comments on news sites.
- syshum 10y ago
  >>those that love them have already made up their mind and won't look at contradicting evidence. Like you are doing here... >>TechCrunch switched over from Disqus to Facebook comments, I stopped commenting, Did the level of comments drop as well because I do not have today, nor will I ever have a Facebook account, any site that uses Facebook as a comment system does not want nor will get my feedback or participation
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  I voted you up in order to remove some of the downvotes you're getting, because there's nothing wrong with the tone or level of documentation in your comment. However, you are also completely wrong. I'll produce two anecdata points. Look at the Facebook comments on a local newspaper that uses them (e.g., thestate.com). Note that on any article that touches on a partisan issue or a scandal, the tone and contents of the comments are vicious, personal, and frequently harassing. I admin a large-ish meme page on Facebook. The comments section is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. From what I can tell, some communities have better norms than others, in terms of promoting civility, but the use of real names doesn't make a significant difference.
KVFinn 10y ago
In my experience it eliminates a particular kind of drive-by trolling, but leaves the other kinds unaffected. Only constant moderation really keeps it out.
- TillE 10y ago
  Probably. I've definitely never seen a good Facebook comments section on any site. Nasty arguments and low-grade garbage. Real names simply don't stop most people from being vile on the internet.
  - usrusr 10y ago
    Public Facebook comment sections on third party sites have the ugly effect of self-selecting users to those who either really don't care at all about appearances or who have that special level of righteousness that makes them believe that any opinion they might voice would be universally applauded. Those with a more balanced opinion tend to not put out their flag in a place like that. It's a recipe for the perfect storm. Real names do stop most people from being nasty on the internet, but that also makes them invisible, so that only the unstoppable minority remains.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    My scummy dad has a fake Facebook account he uses solely to troll the comments section of sites.
syphilis2 10y ago
One of the great benefits from an online alias is being able to build relationships in a community while retaining the ability to cease (and resume) that contact at any time. The alias may as well represent its own individual, with minimal risk to the underlying user(s) as to its reputation. It's a huge relief and a boon to expression to be able to communicate without worrying about the reputation of a sole "real name".
- Twisell 10y ago
  And this is actually even more reflecting of real life interactions. In all the activity circles you go IRL most of your acquaintances know only your first name. Only people you really bond with usually known your last name. So why on earth should every person you talk to online should be provided your full name and possibly start stalking you?
  - doppel 10y ago
    Taken even further, even in real life you are likely to have different circles of friends and colleagues - it is likely that you behave differently for each group (knowingly or unknowingly), because they each have an established way of behaving, mannerisms, etc. Just think of an inappropriate joke that one group might find hilarious and another would be appalled by. The internet is no different, except we are now expected to behave in a singular way in a group conversation of 500 people.
robmcm 10y ago
Wow a 5.6 MB background image... It took me 13 seconds to load it on a 20 Mbps connection. And there we are worrying about how many Kb our JavaScript libs are.
- disiplus 10y ago
  people are not even trying, this image could be a jpg of <=500kb with same quality. use png for icons, text, graphs , but save images as jpg. i see this many times, my rule is to never exceed 150 kb for those "retina" images
- dx034 10y ago
  They seem to host on Google cloud, so if the story becomes popular enough here it could give them some incentive to change that, considering Google's traffic fees..
- sundvor 10y ago
  That's completely nuts. Tried to upload it* to http://compresspng.com/ http://compresspng.com/ , and after what seemed like a few hours (Australian upload on cable is 100x slower than the download) I got a 72% reduction in size to 1604kb. That is, an identical image if you absolutely must insist on that quality. Without having a checked, I'd venture to say that a 200-300KB jpeg would look very close and more than good enough for the purposes of the article header. *) https://blog.coralproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/hats.png https://blog.coralproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/hat...
- pja 10y ago
  I dropped the site’s tech contact an email & they’ve fixed it now.
Phait 10y ago
I think that this overall push towards eliminating anonimity and trolls from the internet can only have negative outcomes. Sure, nobody will ever be offended again, but at what cost? And who are these easily offended people for whom we're sacrificing freedom of speech? It baffles me how nobody sees a parallel with 1984, here, and it's not the usual cliche claim. From: >do not say anything against someone To: >do not think anything against someone The step is incredibly short. Moreover, how are we supposed to have true bipartisan information if we can only see one side of the coin because the other one would require to talk bad about someone? I can see every dictator of the world smiling, as proposals like this are being considered throughout the world.
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  Nobody's claiming that nobody will ever be offended again (straw man); the idea / theory is that by using real name, there'd be less anonymous trolling. Offense might become even worse when it's not done anonymously though. Then it becomes a real person kicking a target's shins. Can be good (the argument improving, becoming more of a critique than just brainless insulting), can be bad (the offender not giving a fuck). Linus has been offending people for a long time without using a pseudonym. But he knows what he's talking about, and is not ashamed of himself for the language he uses / has used.
  - bandrami 10y ago
    And the theory is apparently contradicted by the evidence. As the article points out, people are actually more sensitive to group norms when they are anonymous than when they are whatever the opposite is (nonymous? eunonymous?). The problem isn't the anonymity, it's the norms.
  - type0 10y ago
    > the idea / theory is that by using real name, there'd be less anonymous trolling. > Offense might become even worse when it's not done anonymously though. Then it becomes a real person kicking a target's shins. If you completely ban pseudonyms, the trolls will just impersonate other people. The effect is that it will be even more harmful for personal well-being for both those who get trolled and those who get to be impersonated.
vog 10y ago
The real name discussion is as old as the Usenet, maybe even older. I find it strange to see it re-appearing again and again every few years for almost decades. Back then, the consensus was roughly: 1. If a community accepts pseudonyms, it is polite to use either your realname or an obvious pseudonym. 2. If a community places high value on realnames, either use your realname or a realname-sounding (i.e. non-obvious) pseudonym. 3. Unmasking someone's nonpublic realname, or other private information, is generally considered impolite if not aggressive, regardless whether the community places high value on realnames or not. Has anything substantially changed since then?
- Swizec 10y ago
  Same rules apply as always: don't share your real name and address online outside very very small and personable communities. People often ask me why i still haven't changed my name to Swizec legally. This is why. You never know who out of the thousands of people you interact with online could get crazy ideas. With a pseudonym they can still identify you and know who you are, but they can't call your bank and do something silly.
  - dirkt 10y ago
    I've shared by real name on Usenet for decades, nobody got crazy ideas (though I've encountered quite a few crazy people). "Calling my bank and doing something silly" doesn't work in the country in live in. There's not a lot people can do with just my name.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      I wonder about treating home address as such a secret. If someone wants to kill/kidnap me, they could always find me at my workplace or on a conference or sth. So what else are people going to do with my home address? Send me a postcard? In the good ol' days, we had this thing called "a phonebook", which was basically a big printed book of alphabetically sorted mappings of surname to phone number and home address...
MaysonL 10y ago
One of my relatives uses a pseudonym on Facebook because they were harassed at school under their real name because they're gay.
babuskov 10y ago
I like how Roblox register form tells new users NOT to use their real name: https://www.roblox.com/ https://www.roblox.com/
janwillemb 10y ago
My real name doesn't uniquely identify me, because there are more people in the world with the same name. According to some web searching, I have already died a long time ago, I am a technical illustrator, I collect model trains, etc. So a "real name" could be compromising even if totally unjust
- draugadrotten 10y ago
  I am in the opposite situation. My real name is so rare that it uniquely identifies me globally, as far as I know. I have angered a religious group which is known for intimidation and even physical threats to critics. This makes me very uncomfortable in using sites that demands "real names". I would never sign up for Facebook, for example.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    My girlfriend has a name so unique that I put it into google images along with my town name (a capital city), and her picture shows up...
- CM30 10y ago
  This is a very good point. Using real names doesn't 'reduce anonymity'. It 'reduces anonymity' for people with rare names and leaves those with common names nearly as anonymous as before.
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    A person's name is one of the strongest identifying factors there is. Even for people with common names, combining their name with other easily deduced information about them could easily lead to a unique identification. For instance, if you looked through my HN or reddit comments, you could easily figure out roughly what area I live in, my occupation, my approximate age and many other pieces of information that would link back to my real identity. That information combined with my real name would uniquely identify me even if I had an extremely common name.
some1else 10y ago
Facebook hate groups are real (anti-immigrant, anti-lgbt, ...). They're getting better at skirting the rules, so there's no way to disband them. I'm seeing dozens of such groups form for a country with a population of ~2 million (Slovenia). I think the mentality those bubbles breed is even more dangerous than Twitter harassment. Instead of manifesting itself in bullying and conflict, it's nurturing the different flavours of toxicity in nicely compartmentalised jars. I can't agree with the author's statement, that design itself is not primarily responsible for a solution, as it is instrumental in enabling such an environment in the first place.
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  And being anti-immigrant or anti-LGBT is their right; it's freedom of speech, which extends to freedom to hate. Lots of people hate Trump, that's their right to have. There's a line drawn when it becomes harassment or incitement to violence (then they veer towards becoming a terrorist organization).
  - hashmal 10y ago
    I feel like today this freedom profits more to awful people than to the good of society.
    - 234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
      Well I'm glad laws are not created based on your feelings, but logic and reason.
    - CM30 10y ago
      Well not really. Freedom of speech is meant to protect all views, including those other people might find wrong, abhorrent or against social norms. This can easily be both a 'good' (in the case of say, a pro gays right campaigner in a conservative theocracy) or 'bad' (in the case of a Neo Nazi in Germany) thing. But your view kind of sums up in a nutshell why freedom of speech is a hard battle. Because it's all too easy to only see 'horrible' people and views benefiting due to them being the type of views people would want to ban if freedom of speech didn't exist. It's the same kind of problem Tor advocates have when arguing that privacy and anonymity are rights people should have. Because people only see the drugs, crime and illegal porn and think that privacy is only something 'bad' people need. Either way, both freedom of speech and privacy benefit everywhere, yet get a bad rep due to people only seeing the negatives they allow rather than the people and rights they may save.
CM30 10y ago
I think this is probably the key takeaway from the article here: > Designers need to acknowledge that design cannot solve harassment and other social problems on its own. Trying to remove anonymity will not 'fix' trolling and harassment. After all, a lot of people simply don't care what others think of them, know they're too far away to be affected (in most cases) or just have nothing to lose to begin with. What can 'fix' trolling is evenhanded, firm moderation of a community site. There are tons of forums and wikis and other such sites out there which do well here, because they simply lay out clear rules for participation and ban people for being scumbags and breaking said rules. Facebook and Twitter struggle with this, partly because it's impractical to manually moderate a site with so many users and partly because their model doesn't really allow it. And maybe in part because they're very clearly inconsistent with who gets banned for saying what (like say, banning more conservative accounts than liberal accounts for trolling). Which itself undermines confidence in the site's rules. So yeah, the key to an online community without harassment isn't removing anonymity, it's having clear rules in that place and enforcing them equally regardless of a member's status or political views.
- syshum 10y ago
  >Trying to remove anonymity will not 'fix' trolling and harassment. After all, a lot of people simply don't care what others think of them, know they're too far away to be affected (in most cases) or just have nothing to lose to begin with. While that is true, many times what person A considers to be harassment, the person that is harassing them does not consider it to be harassment at all. This is not to say the person is not being harassed, although I have seen many examples of people claiming to have been "harassed" but when I view the twitter history for example I do not consider it to be harassment. That said often abusers do not self identify as abusers for example a Wife beater does not believe they are abusing their victim. >>Facebook and Twitter struggle with this, partly because it's impractical to manually moderate a site with so many users and partly because their model doesn't really allow it. Facebook and Twitter struggle with this because they refuse to create the clear rules for participation you stated other sites do. They proclaim to be "Free Speech" platforms welcome to "All Ideas and discussion" while creating mushy and lose rules that are highly subjective and makes enforcing those rules problematic. Where as the sites you describe are normally subject matter sites so it is somewhat easier to define a more ridged rule set. Facebook, twitter, and to a lesser extent Reddits problem is it impossible to be both a "Free Speech" platform and a censor... These are mutually exclusive concepts
donaldmorganjr 10y ago
I am posting this with my real name. I agree with this article.
bleair 10y ago
I'm biased by empirical data - e.g. look at youtube comments (anonymous) vs. amazon reviews (real identity owned by amazon). Human nature demonstrates that a fraction of people really like to put down / bully / see others suffering because they are personally unhappy (e.g. the shock talk shows). Anonymity allows bullying behavior with no consequence. More simply, why do people spend time and energy online "trolling" others. Clearly a sizable portion of people like trolling others, though I don't personally see why.
- syshum 10y ago
  I often see this comparison, it is hardly "empirical data" Leaving a product review is a completely different social activity than commenting on a Video, videos that are often political, religious or other personally controversial topic Comparing YT comments to Amazon Product reviews holds no value at all. It is telling that you dismiss actual research for your own anecdotal and flawed observations to accept the idea that Real name Policies are a good thing
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  I admin a fairly large page on Facebook. I would say the level of meanness in the comments is closer to YouTube comments than to Amazon reviews, despite Facebook's real names policy.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  > Human nature demonstrates that a fraction of people really like to put down / bully / see others suffering because they are personally unhappy (e.g. the shock talk shows). I don't believe this is true at all. My experience of human nature is that all people really like to put down, bully, or see others suffering, but each person has their own particular groups who make them feel that way. They also generally don't think of it as trolling, but as heroic truthtelling - as do observers who think of the bully as a member of the ingroup and the target as a member of an outgroup.
Pica_soO 10y ago
The Real Name Fallacy is social nostalgia- if we all could go back to the village, then everything would be good? The solution for this and fake news, would be chains of trust. I do not trust my government, i do not trust my media, but i know two or three guys, i would trust too know. If these guys vouched for the guys vouching for the knowledge i see to be true, i would trust that. In return, i can fade the crack-pots opinions with a filter, based upon a similar chain of trust. But this system would need to be decentralized, it would need to allow to withdraw this trust in an instant. Centralize this, and the inherent distrust breaks free time after time again.
- vog 10y ago
  > But this system would need to be decentralized Back in the times of Usenet, this already existed: The client-side (hence decentral) "Scorefile" and "Killfile".
  - NoGravitas 10y ago
    I so often wish that web fora, social media, etc., all worked on a common protocol like a modernized Usenet so that we could use our choice of clients and have useful features like scorefiles. So much ink has been spilled about how Facebook's algorithm chooses what to show you, but imagine having complete control on the client side over both the algorithm, and the parameters tuning it. We used to have this, the only thing stopping it now is bad incentives.
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      That's RSS. Too bad it was a mess of half-articles, intro paragraphs, fake submissions, and a very rare full article mixed in there somewhere.
      - vog 10y ago
        Although there is some truth in this, this is not the full picture. I believe that Usenet has been replaced mainly by mailing lists, not by blogs. Having long-text conversations through blogs is possible, but mailing lists and (what's left of the) Usenet are better suited - the same way as IRC and instant messangers are better suited for chats than email, although you could chat via email as well.
tscs37 10y ago
Real Names on the internet only create problems and the things it intends to solve get shoved into a backroom and forgotten about. Moderating the content is far more effective if done right. It's probably a bit like IT security and should be thought of as such. Real names are something you can do but it's most likely on the same level as whitelisting programs and hotglue-ing all unused ports shut. Even with all that, a determined hacker will just use the office copier and the installed OCR Text Recognition to infiltrate a microsoft office script. (DEFCON talk that I recommend to watch). There is no 100% safety from trolls and every defense measure also hurts legit users in some way. TL;DR Know your threat level. Real Names are not necessarily the thing you want and most likely are very rarely and still won't be 100%.
saycheese 10y ago
Many "real names" cannot even be used in the "real world" because systems don't support it.
upofadown 10y ago
I think that in practice the problem comes down to preventing sociopathic sadists from annoying everyone in complicated ways. The actual level of anonymity doesn't really matter but there are classes of solutions that work better without. The only possible non-technical solution for that class of user would be to track them down in real life and fine them. The possible abuse associated with such a scheme make that sort of solution unattractive.
yuhong 10y ago
I dislike forced real name policies too, but I really would like some of the problems with using real names to be fixed if possible.
amelius 10y ago
We should have better protection of our rights to be anonymous online when we want. BUT ALSO We should have better methods to reveal our identity online in a guaranteed way if we wish to do so. Currently, both options are often non-existent or broken.
teddyh 10y ago
Who is harmed by a "Real Names" policy? http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...
- crystalmeph 10y ago
  Expanding on the entry for those who have an unpopular political opinion - Take for example the current narrative that anyone who voted for Trump is a bigoted sexist homophobe. I know many people that did vote for Trump, and while I personally didn't vote for him (and it's telling that I feel I need to get that out of the way), I believe that many, if not the vast majority of people who voted for him did so either: - Because they genuinely thought he was the lesser of two evils; - Or because they genuinely feel that he will at least try to do something to help people in their economic situation. However, the narrative pushed by almost the entirety of cultural institutions such as popular entertainers, high-profile tech leaders, etc. makes people who voted for Trump legitimately feel like they are the target of a witch hunt.
  - teddyh 10y ago
    The list does include it: “Anyone with political views (however mild) that may be unpopular or discriminated against”.
    - crystalmeph 10y ago
      Oh man, I thought I searched that list fully before posting. Thanks! I edited my post to be an expansion of that item, rather than a new addition.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > Expanding on the entry for those who have an unpopular political opinion - Take for example the current narrative that anyone who voted for Trump is a bigoted sexist homophobe. I don't think I could go so far as to label someone a "bigoted sexist homophobe" simply because they voted for someone who I didn't agree with or vote for, but that isn't really the case with Trump. This was a man who we have documented video and audio evidence of him saying bigoted, sexist, and homophobic statements. We have evidence of him encouraging (to an extent) his followers and supporters to commit violence against those who disagreed with him (at his political rallies, for example). I won't go further into this - all of it is documented - it was his platform! Strangely, that was about all of his platform; I don't really recall ever hearing him actually state any real policy positions or what he would actually do and why, once in office. What little he did say ended up being word salad at times, and at others, he would literally contradict himself from one sentence to the next! Now - let's say we have a person who votes for someone else. The person they voted for they have heard make statements that are bigoted, that are sexist, and that are also homophobic. Video and audio evidence, as well as witnessed evidence, can also be presented to them after the fact. If that person, after knowing this, and also being presented the same evidence of these statements, goes ahead and votes for that person, well - that is their right, of course. But it also has to speak to their character as well, because they either chose to ignore such statements, or they potentially agree with them. As-is, even ignoring them says they tacitly agree with them on some level. He may have been considered "the lessor of two evils" and/or someone who would try to help others in dire economic situations, but of the two candidates, he was the only one who espoused bigoted, sexist, and homophobic ideas, out loud, and on the record. I'm not sure how that could be considered "lessor of two evils" unless one thinks such thoughts and statements aren't inherently bad.
Dowwie 10y ago
This article cites many excellent papers. I highly recommend checking them out before closing off the page.
bluetidepro 10y ago
Does anyone have any good examples or resources that they can point to that possibly show an online community switching one way or the other with real/pseudonyms and the results that showed? Would be curious to see some first hand data about the issue.
Dowwie 10y ago
The article focuses on improving online behavior yet doesn't acknowledge trust-- a key reason that user identity matters in online communities.
- msabalau 10y ago
  Surely trust can be achieved through consistent identities which aren't real names, or by allowing the option of (but not mandating) user names which are real names.
beat 10y ago
I think a lot of the commenters on this thread would do themselves well to read about Gamergate from women's perspectives, and learn about extreme online harassment. Real names make it a little harder for attackers to hide behind anonymity, but a lot easier for those crossing lines to find their targets.
Tharre 10y ago
If you're claiming that women, in general, today on the internet face worse than death threats, you're going to need to provide proof for that. And anecdotal evidence is not going to cut it, most people with an online presence get their fair share of death threats at some point.
- macintux 10y ago
  It seems indisputable that sustained harassment is a problem for some significant number of women online. I'm asserting that such harassment is worse than what I faced back then, and that what I faced then was pretty unusual.
  - Tharre 10y ago
    That's a significantly weaker claim then. Depending on how many women are needed for a 'significant number' I might even agree with it.
    - Frondo 10y ago
      I don't think you're arguing in good faith right now. This sounds an awful lot like sealioning. (For those who aren't familiar with it, http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/ is the origin of the term.)
      - Tharre 10y ago
        I have no idea what you're trying to point out (or what that comic is about).
        CocaKoala 10y ago
        He's pointing out that you're trying to force an argument to happen, even when it's clear that the other party doesn't really want to engage in an argument. Additionally, you're doing it in a fairly obnoxious manner.
rudolf0 10y ago
(This was a reply to a now-deleted comment.) >Is there actually a widespread "life and death" issues here? There have some very publicized cases, but I have yet to see any data that there this is a significant problem beyond having the police called to your house or getting bunch of pizzas delivered that you didn't order. That said, there are definitely dangers with governments who deny basic human rights. >The bank account issue is really more just about normal identity theft and isn't really part of the topic either. >I should add that things like "harassment" do not qualify here as those are normal parts of everyday life anyway regardless if your personal information gets revealed online. >Are we sure we're not just participating in the typical online habit of blowing regular issues into 10 alarm fires? >beyond having the police called to your house That's understating the danger of the situation due to the militarization of US police (and also their duty to respond to what they think is a real threat). These "SWATing" attempts usually go like this: "Help, someone's being held hostage at [X] address, they have rifles" SWAT team arrives and kicks in the door, guns blazing, kills all your pets [1], and might shoot you too [2]. So far there hasn't been a human death from SWAT hoaxes, just animals and injuries, but it'll probably happen at some point. Is this a "widespread" problem? I don't know. In the communities I've been in, it is, though it probably isn't for the Internet at large. Even ignoring the risks of SWATing, though, there are so many people out there who will try to find your personal information and make your life a living hell on a daily basis due to online disagreements. I deal with such people on a daily basis. Anonymity is absolutely critical and me to others who might cross paths with sociopaths and "e-road rage" types. [1] https://archive.is/nu4Lv https://archive.is/nu4Lv [2] http://www.theblaze.com/news/2015/07/16/swatting-prank-ends-horribly-for-victim-and-he-has-the-injury-to-prove-it/ http://www.theblaze.com/news/2015/07/16/swatting-prank-ends-...
rocky1138 10y ago
The internet was better when we were all anonymous. It felt like we could do anything, be anyone. The world was ours. Then social media came and destroyed that dream. Consider the difference in mood between the idea of creating a metaverse in the 90s/00s to creating one now. One is the freeing experience of Second Life or Active Worlds and the other is that widely circulated image of a large crowd, all wearing GearVR headsets while Mark Zuckerberg strolls past[1]. [1] http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/22/16/3173A1BA00000578-0-image-a-4_1456157766857.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/22/16/3173A1BA0000057...
lisper 10y ago
Here's a data point: I was working at JPL when it instituted an internal usenet newsgroup (this was the mid-90s) for discussing work-related issues. It was initially anonymous to encourage people to speak frankly. Almost immediately it devolved into a cesspool of insults and epithets. It was my first experience with this phenomenon, and at the time I was shocked by it. (Nowadays, of course, this sort of thing is just business and usual on the internet.) After a month or two it got so bad that management decided to remove the anonymity. The tone of the group changed literally overnight, and people started behaving in a civil manner. The sad fact of the matter is that if you want human beings to behave, you have to be able to hold them accountable.
- ameister14 10y ago
  There is also a difference between anonymity where no profile or pseudo-identity is created and one where you have an identity that you carry with you as you use a service or forum.
  - lisper 10y ago
    True. The JPL forum was anonymous, not pseudonymous (which made it very confusing in addition to being a civility train wreck). Pseudonyms offer some limited accountability because it allows people to ignore postings from a particular source. But you still need some enforcement. For example, there has to be some sort of cost associated with creating a new pseudonym, otherwise trolls will just keep creating new ones.
- gertef 10y ago
  and people also became afraid to express themselves candidly. the solution is moderation and leadership, not forcing identity. but that is expensive, so owners don't want it.
EekSnakePond 10y ago
Thought experiment from 2,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges Until the Internet can guarantee that I will not be targeted by petulant ideological zealots obsessed with doxxing people to win online arguments, Goons who infiltrate the State Department to steer it's considerable resources against it's political enemies, social justice warriors who try to get people fired because someone doesn't agree with Rachel Maddow, or state agencies who scour my tax records to Al Capone me, I'll keep whatever anonymity I can preserve, thank you very much. EDIT: I'll happily deal with an endless torrent of honest deplorables who occasionally troll every so often over politically-motivated psychopaths any day of the week.
LordKano 10y ago
I have been using this pseudonym online for over 20 years. I have been using it for so long that I have since found others who have started using it too but there are far fewer of them than there are of people who share my actual first and last name. I am a member of a Facebook group that has over 60 members who share the same first and last name. So, it's more descriptive when I use this pseudonym than it is when I use my real name. I'm only aware of about 3-4 people using this pseudonym but more than 60 who use my real name.
pessimizer 10y ago
The only reason using real names affects behavior is because people fear retaliation, so the policy suppresses behavior likely to offend people and groups with the known will and ability to retaliate. This, to the powerful, is equivalent to improving behavior. edit: what's the alternate proposed mechanism? There's no magic in a name other than a method to track people and hold them responsible.
Paperweight 10y ago
Can't ID'd and anonymous forums coexist?
webXL 10y ago
If harassment is a social and cultural problem, then in my view, so is the desire for anonymity, which is a natural byproduct that aids both sides. Banning anonymity would negatively impact both sides. But who is harmed more? And who is harmed more in the other scenario? The article just focuses on one side of the former. Sure certain individuals need more protection if a real name policy is enforced, but at least it's easier to identify and punish the bigots. That said, I don't think pseudonyms should be banned in order to prevent harassment, but where people go to discuss complex and sensitive topics, I would expect to see more thoughtful responses from a Real Name vs. a_guy_with_nothing_to_lose, barring a decent karma system.
EekSnakePond 10y ago
Step -1.) Demand real name's to protect the childrens. Step 0.) We did it! Everyone has to use real names now! Equality unlocked! Step 1.) Put in someone else's real name instead of your own. Step 2.) Troll as that person or use that real name to infiltrate that person's social network Step lulz.) Doxx brigade/morality police now target the wrong person. Step 3.) Congratulations, not only did you not solve the problem you were trying to solve, now your rules are a robust breeding ground to cause actual social and economic damage to people YOU ALREADY AGREE WITH because "pixels are feelings, too". Step 4.) Hang your head in shame for such short-term thinking. Step 5.) Downvote me because of tone.
- PretzelFisch 10y ago
  so, make them prove their id. Sure it doesn't scale but now you would have to actually steal someone's identity rather than just use a fake name.
  - EekSnakePond 10y ago
    Sometimes, I can't tell if the newer generation understands that Photoshop is a thing or not. Also, I'm pretty sure they have no idea that when you create a massive repository of identities to try and protect the childrens, you're just painting a huge bullseye on the back of it's database. It's like people believe Russians hacked the election, but no one could EVER hack a central repository of identities! Why, it's protected by good intentions and saving the childrens! Oh hey, another 1 billion Yahoo! identities got leaked...
DelaneyM 10y ago
The problem isn't just discrimination/harassment (though that's huge - I used to use a male pseudonym on my github & stackoverflow accounts, and still do on medium.) It's also just pragmatically impossible. I have changed my first name legally three times. I have changed my last name once. I currently have different legal names in three countries, on my undergraduate & masters degrees, and on my 401k, and none of those are the name I am known by to my colleagues & friends. What is my "real name"?
- quirkafleeg 10y ago
  Frank Abagnale?
  - DelaneyM 10y ago
    Hah - if I'd changed my name so often for malicious intent, instead of family & marriage reasons, it'd probably be much more rationally arranged. Not having a canonical "real name" is a giant PITA.
- mjevans 10y ago
  Your GIN (Government Issued Number), be it an SSN, SIN, or anything else. At least, as far as the one most easy to use against you.
swagv1 10y ago
Facebook drank the Kool-Aid and failed.

318 points by maxt 10y ago

kome 10y ago

Very thoughtful article... we are having this debate now in Italy and this would need to be translated.

LoSboccacc 10y ago
do we? I'm out of the loop besides major news because there's almost no hope left, so I missed it. who's pushing it this time?
- kome 10y ago
  http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/controlli-dannosi-e-inutili-basterebbe-vietare-lanonimato/ http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/controlli-d...
  - LoSboccacc 10y ago
    ugh, Mentana, tu quoque I don't know where this "ministry of truths" resurgences come from but really needs to be stopped. between this and Grillo promoting a 'randomized popular college vote' to determine "The Truth", situation is increasingly scary for freedom of speech.

aestetix 10y ago

Been at this battle for a few years. Check out https://nymrights.org/ https://nymrights.org/ (and https://nymrights.org/nymrights-info-flyer/ https://nymrights.org/nymrights-info-flyer/ for the info flyer)

wfunction 10y ago

Thing is, if I had to guess, I would say Facebook doesn't attempt to make you use your real name to make the community better in the first place. That's almost certainly just its pretext for everyone who's willing to fall for it. Most likely, it does that to make sure it can identify you globally and uniquely for commercial/advertising purposes. Think about how much more valuable your online identity is if you go solely by Jon Doe rather than by foolover123, bar456fudger, and nighthowler789?

blauditore 10y ago
I doubt this, since Facebook doesn't seem to care much about fantasy names. They get most interest data about you from within FB (what pages and posts you like etc.) and from pages across the internet you visit through like buttons embedded there (even without clicking them). So there's a lot of relevant meta data directly linked to your account and no need for them to know your real name.
- wfunction 10y ago
  Does use of this [1] information not include attempting to match up the user's real-life name with his/her Facebook name? [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/494750870625830 https://www.facebook.com/help/494750870625830
- mattnewton 10y ago
  There was a good article on pro publica [0] (who I trust very much) about facebook's use of offline data source, and that presumably needs to be linked by real name [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-user...
- thanatropism 10y ago
  Last time I tried to create an alt account they insisted on a phone number, though.
  - blauditore 10y ago
    That's more about uniqueness than using your real name. Spam and fraud accounts are a rather big problem, and this is one way of raising the barrier for creating those. And yeah, Facebook surely has other motivation too, like not having your metadata scattered across multiple accounts. But I still don't see how knowing your real name would make a strong difference to them. I have quite a few FB friends that use obvious fantasy names (mostly for privacy reasons I think), and they don't seem to be banned or forced to change it.

danmoz 10y ago

Real names is one thing, but I'd really like to see a "real age" system on the internet. That would make ignoring trolls -- who I suspect are frequently not old enough to drive -- a much easier task. It would be more akin to real life, if a 14 y/o tried to bully us in the street we'd laugh them off, but when they're anonymous on the internet it doesn't seem to occur to us that we may be dealing with a child.

wfunction 10y ago
In theory at least, you're supposed to look at what is being said rather than who is saying it... Not at all claiming I always do that myself, but some food for thought.
- danmoz 10y ago
  That's true, but I'm thinking of situations where there is no context other than pure abuse. I wonder if Charlotte Dawson would have taken her own life if she found out that the majority of trolls telling her to kill herself were kids living in their parents basement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dawson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dawson
  - aw3c2 10y ago
    What makes you think that they were kids? I highly doubt that.
  - jacobush 10y ago
    I think that to harass efficiently it helps to have more years. Grownups can be mean in such intricate ways compared to what children can.
barking 10y ago
You sound quite young and naive. How old are you? :)
pjc50 10y ago
Coincidentally the UK government is trying to impose age verification on websites.

blauditore 10y ago

I think it largely depends on the specific community and people in it. While some try to use online anonymity as an outlet to say and do things they wouldn't dare on Facebook or IRL, others seem to want a reality-like reputation around their username/account. A large portion is probably caused simply by community rules; just see /b/ and HN... And to be fair, I've hardly ever seen serious insults on Facebook, but been called dipshit on anonymous platforms regularly. But again, this could be due to community standards.

Inconel 10y ago
>I've hardly ever seen serious insults on Facebook Every once in a while curiosity and boredom get the better of me and I visit ESPN or some other mainstream news site that uses FB profiles for the comments section and I almost always walk away shocked at the kind of comments people are willing to post while directly linking to their real name and profile, often containing their place of employment. Respectfully, if you haven't seen serious insults on FB, or at least on sites using FB profile logins, you haven't been looking hard enough.
- dasboth 10y ago
  I've seen similar and can't help but wonder if at least some of those people don't realise that's happening. Maybe they see the "login with Facebook" as a convenience without knowing their names, jobs etc. will be visible. The rest probably just don't care.
- blauditore 10y ago
  Ok, I was thinking of conversations among people who know each other (i.e. met at least once). Yes, I've seen bad language, heavily racist rants and such, but always from people who would do the same thing in real life, and mainly against third parties (politicians, celebrities, religions, ...). But I'm not extremely active though and hardly ever see large comment threads, like from ESPN.
mattnewton 10y ago
I honestly don't see this on Facebook. I have made very few connections there but I am routinely surprised by the stuff that comes out of people I went to high school with. Not usually because I find it personally offensive, but because I cannot believe someone is okay with having that out there linked to their real name.

mjolk 10y ago

While I agree that expecting users to use real names is a bad thing, this knocked the air out of me: > In societies including the US where violence and mistreatment of women, people of color, and marginalized people is common, we can expect similar problems in people’s digital interactions [1] > [1] Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kate M. Miltner. #MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1):171-174, January 2016. I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US, even if "violence and mistreatment" is broadly defined as people acting rudely on the internet. A post by ESR was even flagged off HN because its message was that he expected evidence to back claims of harassment, which is a microcosm of the trend of "feelings > reality". This is absolutely ludicrous and I'm surprised Mozilla is funding this junk. Further, it's getting rather tiring that the US is always listed as an example when countries/societies exist without legal protection for all races/genders and where slavery and forced labor is still legal.

grzm 10y ago
A post by ESR was even flagged off HN because its message was that he expected evidence to back claims of harassment There's at least one other reason users may have flagged it, and in line with the site guidelines: it doesn't sufficiently satisfy intellectual curiosity, and at the same time has a high likelihood of producing little to no constructive discussion while also being very susceptible to flamewars. That doesn't mean that the topic shouldn't be discussed, just that it's unlikely to be constructively and civilly discussed on HN.
- mjolk 10y ago
  That's fair, but the article was creating (mostly) civil discussion and it was on the topic of perceived bias in open source software communities. I can't not think that it was shot down by someone to defend an ideology.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? Or are you basing this on "feelings > reality", as you put it? > Further, it's getting rather tiring that the US is always listed as an example when countries/societies exist without legal protection for all races/genders and where slavery and forced labor is still legal. The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything.

EGreg 10y ago

I wrote about this before as well, from a technical point of view: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114

ChrisNorstrom 10y ago

I really don't want to say this but, the real names policy does help in terms of trolling behavior for certain communities. When TechCrunch switched over from Disqus to Facebook comments, the amount of trash and trolling was immediately reduced and stayed at a minimum permanently. A lot of the media outlets (Motherboard, Vice, NPR) who've disabled commenting altogether were using Disqus. I've noticed media outlets that use Facebook comments seem to still have commenting turned on. I know anonymity in comment systems is as touchy a subject for internet freedom lovers as gun rights are for people in high crime neighborhoods. Those that hate them have already made up their mind and won't look at contradicting evidence, those that love them have already made up their mind and won't look at contradicting evidence. The truth seems to lies somewhere in the middle. So "Real Names Policy" definitely has it's place. Maybe not everywhere, but definitely in some communities.

rntz 10y ago
Perhaps the common cause here was disqus, rather than anonymity per se? Does anyone know if there any features of disqus that might encourage trolling? Also, I've certainly seen plenty of flaming in FB comments on news sites.
syshum 10y ago
>>those that love them have already made up their mind and won't look at contradicting evidence. Like you are doing here... >>TechCrunch switched over from Disqus to Facebook comments, I stopped commenting, Did the level of comments drop as well because I do not have today, nor will I ever have a Facebook account, any site that uses Facebook as a comment system does not want nor will get my feedback or participation
NoGravitas 10y ago
I voted you up in order to remove some of the downvotes you're getting, because there's nothing wrong with the tone or level of documentation in your comment. However, you are also completely wrong. I'll produce two anecdata points. Look at the Facebook comments on a local newspaper that uses them (e.g., thestate.com). Note that on any article that touches on a partisan issue or a scandal, the tone and contents of the comments are vicious, personal, and frequently harassing. I admin a large-ish meme page on Facebook. The comments section is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. From what I can tell, some communities have better norms than others, in terms of promoting civility, but the use of real names doesn't make a significant difference.

KVFinn 10y ago

In my experience it eliminates a particular kind of drive-by trolling, but leaves the other kinds unaffected. Only constant moderation really keeps it out.

TillE 10y ago
Probably. I've definitely never seen a good Facebook comments section on any site. Nasty arguments and low-grade garbage. Real names simply don't stop most people from being vile on the internet.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Public Facebook comment sections on third party sites have the ugly effect of self-selecting users to those who either really don't care at all about appearances or who have that special level of righteousness that makes them believe that any opinion they might voice would be universally applauded. Those with a more balanced opinion tend to not put out their flag in a place like that. It's a recipe for the perfect storm. Real names do stop most people from being nasty on the internet, but that also makes them invisible, so that only the unstoppable minority remains.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  My scummy dad has a fake Facebook account he uses solely to troll the comments section of sites.

syphilis2 10y ago

One of the great benefits from an online alias is being able to build relationships in a community while retaining the ability to cease (and resume) that contact at any time. The alias may as well represent its own individual, with minimal risk to the underlying user(s) as to its reputation. It's a huge relief and a boon to expression to be able to communicate without worrying about the reputation of a sole "real name".

Twisell 10y ago
And this is actually even more reflecting of real life interactions. In all the activity circles you go IRL most of your acquaintances know only your first name. Only people you really bond with usually known your last name. So why on earth should every person you talk to online should be provided your full name and possibly start stalking you?
- doppel 10y ago
  Taken even further, even in real life you are likely to have different circles of friends and colleagues - it is likely that you behave differently for each group (knowingly or unknowingly), because they each have an established way of behaving, mannerisms, etc. Just think of an inappropriate joke that one group might find hilarious and another would be appalled by. The internet is no different, except we are now expected to behave in a singular way in a group conversation of 500 people.

robmcm 10y ago

Wow a 5.6 MB background image... It took me 13 seconds to load it on a 20 Mbps connection. And there we are worrying about how many Kb our JavaScript libs are.

disiplus 10y ago
people are not even trying, this image could be a jpg of <=500kb with same quality. use png for icons, text, graphs , but save images as jpg. i see this many times, my rule is to never exceed 150 kb for those "retina" images
dx034 10y ago
They seem to host on Google cloud, so if the story becomes popular enough here it could give them some incentive to change that, considering Google's traffic fees..
sundvor 10y ago
That's completely nuts. Tried to upload it* to http://compresspng.com/ http://compresspng.com/ , and after what seemed like a few hours (Australian upload on cable is 100x slower than the download) I got a 72% reduction in size to 1604kb. That is, an identical image if you absolutely must insist on that quality. Without having a checked, I'd venture to say that a 200-300KB jpeg would look very close and more than good enough for the purposes of the article header. *) https://blog.coralproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/hats.png https://blog.coralproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/hat...
pja 10y ago
I dropped the site’s tech contact an email & they’ve fixed it now.

Phait 10y ago

I think that this overall push towards eliminating anonimity and trolls from the internet can only have negative outcomes. Sure, nobody will ever be offended again, but at what cost? And who are these easily offended people for whom we're sacrificing freedom of speech? It baffles me how nobody sees a parallel with 1984, here, and it's not the usual cliche claim. From: >do not say anything against someone To: >do not think anything against someone The step is incredibly short. Moreover, how are we supposed to have true bipartisan information if we can only see one side of the coin because the other one would require to talk bad about someone? I can see every dictator of the world smiling, as proposals like this are being considered throughout the world.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago
Nobody's claiming that nobody will ever be offended again (straw man); the idea / theory is that by using real name, there'd be less anonymous trolling. Offense might become even worse when it's not done anonymously though. Then it becomes a real person kicking a target's shins. Can be good (the argument improving, becoming more of a critique than just brainless insulting), can be bad (the offender not giving a fuck). Linus has been offending people for a long time without using a pseudonym. But he knows what he's talking about, and is not ashamed of himself for the language he uses / has used.
- bandrami 10y ago
  And the theory is apparently contradicted by the evidence. As the article points out, people are actually more sensitive to group norms when they are anonymous than when they are whatever the opposite is (nonymous? eunonymous?). The problem isn't the anonymity, it's the norms.
- type0 10y ago
  > the idea / theory is that by using real name, there'd be less anonymous trolling. > Offense might become even worse when it's not done anonymously though. Then it becomes a real person kicking a target's shins. If you completely ban pseudonyms, the trolls will just impersonate other people. The effect is that it will be even more harmful for personal well-being for both those who get trolled and those who get to be impersonated.

vog 10y ago

The real name discussion is as old as the Usenet, maybe even older. I find it strange to see it re-appearing again and again every few years for almost decades. Back then, the consensus was roughly: 1. If a community accepts pseudonyms, it is polite to use either your realname or an obvious pseudonym. 2. If a community places high value on realnames, either use your realname or a realname-sounding (i.e. non-obvious) pseudonym. 3. Unmasking someone's nonpublic realname, or other private information, is generally considered impolite if not aggressive, regardless whether the community places high value on realnames or not. Has anything substantially changed since then?

Swizec 10y ago
Same rules apply as always: don't share your real name and address online outside very very small and personable communities. People often ask me why i still haven't changed my name to Swizec legally. This is why. You never know who out of the thousands of people you interact with online could get crazy ideas. With a pseudonym they can still identify you and know who you are, but they can't call your bank and do something silly.
- dirkt 10y ago
  I've shared by real name on Usenet for decades, nobody got crazy ideas (though I've encountered quite a few crazy people). "Calling my bank and doing something silly" doesn't work in the country in live in. There's not a lot people can do with just my name.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I wonder about treating home address as such a secret. If someone wants to kill/kidnap me, they could always find me at my workplace or on a conference or sth. So what else are people going to do with my home address? Send me a postcard? In the good ol' days, we had this thing called "a phonebook", which was basically a big printed book of alphabetically sorted mappings of surname to phone number and home address...

MaysonL 10y ago

One of my relatives uses a pseudonym on Facebook because they were harassed at school under their real name because they're gay.

babuskov 10y ago

I like how Roblox register form tells new users NOT to use their real name: https://www.roblox.com/ https://www.roblox.com/

janwillemb 10y ago

My real name doesn't uniquely identify me, because there are more people in the world with the same name. According to some web searching, I have already died a long time ago, I am a technical illustrator, I collect model trains, etc. So a "real name" could be compromising even if totally unjust

draugadrotten 10y ago
I am in the opposite situation. My real name is so rare that it uniquely identifies me globally, as far as I know. I have angered a religious group which is known for intimidation and even physical threats to critics. This makes me very uncomfortable in using sites that demands "real names". I would never sign up for Facebook, for example.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  My girlfriend has a name so unique that I put it into google images along with my town name (a capital city), and her picture shows up...
CM30 10y ago
This is a very good point. Using real names doesn't 'reduce anonymity'. It 'reduces anonymity' for people with rare names and leaves those with common names nearly as anonymous as before.
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  A person's name is one of the strongest identifying factors there is. Even for people with common names, combining their name with other easily deduced information about them could easily lead to a unique identification. For instance, if you looked through my HN or reddit comments, you could easily figure out roughly what area I live in, my occupation, my approximate age and many other pieces of information that would link back to my real identity. That information combined with my real name would uniquely identify me even if I had an extremely common name.

some1else 10y ago

Facebook hate groups are real (anti-immigrant, anti-lgbt, ...). They're getting better at skirting the rules, so there's no way to disband them. I'm seeing dozens of such groups form for a country with a population of ~2 million (Slovenia). I think the mentality those bubbles breed is even more dangerous than Twitter harassment. Instead of manifesting itself in bullying and conflict, it's nurturing the different flavours of toxicity in nicely compartmentalised jars. I can't agree with the author's statement, that design itself is not primarily responsible for a solution, as it is instrumental in enabling such an environment in the first place.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago
And being anti-immigrant or anti-LGBT is their right; it's freedom of speech, which extends to freedom to hate. Lots of people hate Trump, that's their right to have. There's a line drawn when it becomes harassment or incitement to violence (then they veer towards becoming a terrorist organization).
- hashmal 10y ago
  I feel like today this freedom profits more to awful people than to the good of society.
  - 234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
    Well I'm glad laws are not created based on your feelings, but logic and reason.
  - CM30 10y ago
    Well not really. Freedom of speech is meant to protect all views, including those other people might find wrong, abhorrent or against social norms. This can easily be both a 'good' (in the case of say, a pro gays right campaigner in a conservative theocracy) or 'bad' (in the case of a Neo Nazi in Germany) thing. But your view kind of sums up in a nutshell why freedom of speech is a hard battle. Because it's all too easy to only see 'horrible' people and views benefiting due to them being the type of views people would want to ban if freedom of speech didn't exist. It's the same kind of problem Tor advocates have when arguing that privacy and anonymity are rights people should have. Because people only see the drugs, crime and illegal porn and think that privacy is only something 'bad' people need. Either way, both freedom of speech and privacy benefit everywhere, yet get a bad rep due to people only seeing the negatives they allow rather than the people and rights they may save.

CM30 10y ago

I think this is probably the key takeaway from the article here: > Designers need to acknowledge that design cannot solve harassment and other social problems on its own. Trying to remove anonymity will not 'fix' trolling and harassment. After all, a lot of people simply don't care what others think of them, know they're too far away to be affected (in most cases) or just have nothing to lose to begin with. What can 'fix' trolling is evenhanded, firm moderation of a community site. There are tons of forums and wikis and other such sites out there which do well here, because they simply lay out clear rules for participation and ban people for being scumbags and breaking said rules. Facebook and Twitter struggle with this, partly because it's impractical to manually moderate a site with so many users and partly because their model doesn't really allow it. And maybe in part because they're very clearly inconsistent with who gets banned for saying what (like say, banning more conservative accounts than liberal accounts for trolling). Which itself undermines confidence in the site's rules. So yeah, the key to an online community without harassment isn't removing anonymity, it's having clear rules in that place and enforcing them equally regardless of a member's status or political views.

syshum 10y ago
>Trying to remove anonymity will not 'fix' trolling and harassment. After all, a lot of people simply don't care what others think of them, know they're too far away to be affected (in most cases) or just have nothing to lose to begin with. While that is true, many times what person A considers to be harassment, the person that is harassing them does not consider it to be harassment at all. This is not to say the person is not being harassed, although I have seen many examples of people claiming to have been "harassed" but when I view the twitter history for example I do not consider it to be harassment. That said often abusers do not self identify as abusers for example a Wife beater does not believe they are abusing their victim. >>Facebook and Twitter struggle with this, partly because it's impractical to manually moderate a site with so many users and partly because their model doesn't really allow it. Facebook and Twitter struggle with this because they refuse to create the clear rules for participation you stated other sites do. They proclaim to be "Free Speech" platforms welcome to "All Ideas and discussion" while creating mushy and lose rules that are highly subjective and makes enforcing those rules problematic. Where as the sites you describe are normally subject matter sites so it is somewhat easier to define a more ridged rule set. Facebook, twitter, and to a lesser extent Reddits problem is it impossible to be both a "Free Speech" platform and a censor... These are mutually exclusive concepts

donaldmorganjr 10y ago

I am posting this with my real name. I agree with this article.

bleair 10y ago

I'm biased by empirical data - e.g. look at youtube comments (anonymous) vs. amazon reviews (real identity owned by amazon). Human nature demonstrates that a fraction of people really like to put down / bully / see others suffering because they are personally unhappy (e.g. the shock talk shows). Anonymity allows bullying behavior with no consequence. More simply, why do people spend time and energy online "trolling" others. Clearly a sizable portion of people like trolling others, though I don't personally see why.

syshum 10y ago
I often see this comparison, it is hardly "empirical data" Leaving a product review is a completely different social activity than commenting on a Video, videos that are often political, religious or other personally controversial topic Comparing YT comments to Amazon Product reviews holds no value at all. It is telling that you dismiss actual research for your own anecdotal and flawed observations to accept the idea that Real name Policies are a good thing
NoGravitas 10y ago
I admin a fairly large page on Facebook. I would say the level of meanness in the comments is closer to YouTube comments than to Amazon reviews, despite Facebook's real names policy.
pessimizer 10y ago
> Human nature demonstrates that a fraction of people really like to put down / bully / see others suffering because they are personally unhappy (e.g. the shock talk shows). I don't believe this is true at all. My experience of human nature is that all people really like to put down, bully, or see others suffering, but each person has their own particular groups who make them feel that way. They also generally don't think of it as trolling, but as heroic truthtelling - as do observers who think of the bully as a member of the ingroup and the target as a member of an outgroup.

Pica_soO 10y ago

The Real Name Fallacy is social nostalgia- if we all could go back to the village, then everything would be good? The solution for this and fake news, would be chains of trust. I do not trust my government, i do not trust my media, but i know two or three guys, i would trust too know. If these guys vouched for the guys vouching for the knowledge i see to be true, i would trust that. In return, i can fade the crack-pots opinions with a filter, based upon a similar chain of trust. But this system would need to be decentralized, it would need to allow to withdraw this trust in an instant. Centralize this, and the inherent distrust breaks free time after time again.

vog 10y ago
> But this system would need to be decentralized Back in the times of Usenet, this already existed: The client-side (hence decentral) "Scorefile" and "Killfile".
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  I so often wish that web fora, social media, etc., all worked on a common protocol like a modernized Usenet so that we could use our choice of clients and have useful features like scorefiles. So much ink has been spilled about how Facebook's algorithm chooses what to show you, but imagine having complete control on the client side over both the algorithm, and the parameters tuning it. We used to have this, the only thing stopping it now is bad incentives.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    That's RSS. Too bad it was a mess of half-articles, intro paragraphs, fake submissions, and a very rare full article mixed in there somewhere.
    - vog 10y ago
      Although there is some truth in this, this is not the full picture. I believe that Usenet has been replaced mainly by mailing lists, not by blogs. Having long-text conversations through blogs is possible, but mailing lists and (what's left of the) Usenet are better suited - the same way as IRC and instant messangers are better suited for chats than email, although you could chat via email as well.

tscs37 10y ago

Real Names on the internet only create problems and the things it intends to solve get shoved into a backroom and forgotten about. Moderating the content is far more effective if done right. It's probably a bit like IT security and should be thought of as such. Real names are something you can do but it's most likely on the same level as whitelisting programs and hotglue-ing all unused ports shut. Even with all that, a determined hacker will just use the office copier and the installed OCR Text Recognition to infiltrate a microsoft office script. (DEFCON talk that I recommend to watch). There is no 100% safety from trolls and every defense measure also hurts legit users in some way. TL;DR Know your threat level. Real Names are not necessarily the thing you want and most likely are very rarely and still won't be 100%.

saycheese 10y ago

Many "real names" cannot even be used in the "real world" because systems don't support it.

upofadown 10y ago

I think that in practice the problem comes down to preventing sociopathic sadists from annoying everyone in complicated ways. The actual level of anonymity doesn't really matter but there are classes of solutions that work better without. The only possible non-technical solution for that class of user would be to track them down in real life and fine them. The possible abuse associated with such a scheme make that sort of solution unattractive.

yuhong 10y ago

I dislike forced real name policies too, but I really would like some of the problems with using real names to be fixed if possible.

amelius 10y ago

We should have better protection of our rights to be anonymous online when we want. BUT ALSO We should have better methods to reveal our identity online in a guaranteed way if we wish to do so. Currently, both options are often non-existent or broken.

teddyh 10y ago

Who is harmed by a "Real Names" policy? http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...

crystalmeph 10y ago
Expanding on the entry for those who have an unpopular political opinion - Take for example the current narrative that anyone who voted for Trump is a bigoted sexist homophobe. I know many people that did vote for Trump, and while I personally didn't vote for him (and it's telling that I feel I need to get that out of the way), I believe that many, if not the vast majority of people who voted for him did so either: - Because they genuinely thought he was the lesser of two evils; - Or because they genuinely feel that he will at least try to do something to help people in their economic situation. However, the narrative pushed by almost the entirety of cultural institutions such as popular entertainers, high-profile tech leaders, etc. makes people who voted for Trump legitimately feel like they are the target of a witch hunt.
- teddyh 10y ago
  The list does include it: “Anyone with political views (however mild) that may be unpopular or discriminated against”.
  - crystalmeph 10y ago
    Oh man, I thought I searched that list fully before posting. Thanks! I edited my post to be an expansion of that item, rather than a new addition.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  > Expanding on the entry for those who have an unpopular political opinion - Take for example the current narrative that anyone who voted for Trump is a bigoted sexist homophobe. I don't think I could go so far as to label someone a "bigoted sexist homophobe" simply because they voted for someone who I didn't agree with or vote for, but that isn't really the case with Trump. This was a man who we have documented video and audio evidence of him saying bigoted, sexist, and homophobic statements. We have evidence of him encouraging (to an extent) his followers and supporters to commit violence against those who disagreed with him (at his political rallies, for example). I won't go further into this - all of it is documented - it was his platform! Strangely, that was about all of his platform; I don't really recall ever hearing him actually state any real policy positions or what he would actually do and why, once in office. What little he did say ended up being word salad at times, and at others, he would literally contradict himself from one sentence to the next! Now - let's say we have a person who votes for someone else. The person they voted for they have heard make statements that are bigoted, that are sexist, and that are also homophobic. Video and audio evidence, as well as witnessed evidence, can also be presented to them after the fact. If that person, after knowing this, and also being presented the same evidence of these statements, goes ahead and votes for that person, well - that is their right, of course. But it also has to speak to their character as well, because they either chose to ignore such statements, or they potentially agree with them. As-is, even ignoring them says they tacitly agree with them on some level. He may have been considered "the lessor of two evils" and/or someone who would try to help others in dire economic situations, but of the two candidates, he was the only one who espoused bigoted, sexist, and homophobic ideas, out loud, and on the record. I'm not sure how that could be considered "lessor of two evils" unless one thinks such thoughts and statements aren't inherently bad.

Dowwie 10y ago

This article cites many excellent papers. I highly recommend checking them out before closing off the page.

bluetidepro 10y ago

Does anyone have any good examples or resources that they can point to that possibly show an online community switching one way or the other with real/pseudonyms and the results that showed? Would be curious to see some first hand data about the issue.

Dowwie 10y ago

The article focuses on improving online behavior yet doesn't acknowledge trust-- a key reason that user identity matters in online communities.

msabalau 10y ago
Surely trust can be achieved through consistent identities which aren't real names, or by allowing the option of (but not mandating) user names which are real names.

beat 10y ago

I think a lot of the commenters on this thread would do themselves well to read about Gamergate from women's perspectives, and learn about extreme online harassment. Real names make it a little harder for attackers to hide behind anonymity, but a lot easier for those crossing lines to find their targets.

Tharre 10y ago

If you're claiming that women, in general, today on the internet face worse than death threats, you're going to need to provide proof for that. And anecdotal evidence is not going to cut it, most people with an online presence get their fair share of death threats at some point.

macintux 10y ago
It seems indisputable that sustained harassment is a problem for some significant number of women online. I'm asserting that such harassment is worse than what I faced back then, and that what I faced then was pretty unusual.
- Tharre 10y ago
  That's a significantly weaker claim then. Depending on how many women are needed for a 'significant number' I might even agree with it.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    I don't think you're arguing in good faith right now. This sounds an awful lot like sealioning. (For those who aren't familiar with it, http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/ is the origin of the term.)
    - Tharre 10y ago
      I have no idea what you're trying to point out (or what that comic is about).
      - CocaKoala 10y ago
        He's pointing out that you're trying to force an argument to happen, even when it's clear that the other party doesn't really want to engage in an argument. Additionally, you're doing it in a fairly obnoxious manner.

rudolf0 10y ago

(This was a reply to a now-deleted comment.) >Is there actually a widespread "life and death" issues here? There have some very publicized cases, but I have yet to see any data that there this is a significant problem beyond having the police called to your house or getting bunch of pizzas delivered that you didn't order. That said, there are definitely dangers with governments who deny basic human rights. >The bank account issue is really more just about normal identity theft and isn't really part of the topic either. >I should add that things like "harassment" do not qualify here as those are normal parts of everyday life anyway regardless if your personal information gets revealed online. >Are we sure we're not just participating in the typical online habit of blowing regular issues into 10 alarm fires? >beyond having the police called to your house That's understating the danger of the situation due to the militarization of US police (and also their duty to respond to what they think is a real threat). These "SWATing" attempts usually go like this: "Help, someone's being held hostage at [X] address, they have rifles" SWAT team arrives and kicks in the door, guns blazing, kills all your pets [1], and might shoot you too [2]. So far there hasn't been a human death from SWAT hoaxes, just animals and injuries, but it'll probably happen at some point. Is this a "widespread" problem? I don't know. In the communities I've been in, it is, though it probably isn't for the Internet at large. Even ignoring the risks of SWATing, though, there are so many people out there who will try to find your personal information and make your life a living hell on a daily basis due to online disagreements. I deal with such people on a daily basis. Anonymity is absolutely critical and me to others who might cross paths with sociopaths and "e-road rage" types. [1] https://archive.is/nu4Lv https://archive.is/nu4Lv [2] http://www.theblaze.com/news/2015/07/16/swatting-prank-ends-horribly-for-victim-and-he-has-the-injury-to-prove-it/ http://www.theblaze.com/news/2015/07/16/swatting-prank-ends-...

rocky1138 10y ago

The internet was better when we were all anonymous. It felt like we could do anything, be anyone. The world was ours. Then social media came and destroyed that dream. Consider the difference in mood between the idea of creating a metaverse in the 90s/00s to creating one now. One is the freeing experience of Second Life or Active Worlds and the other is that widely circulated image of a large crowd, all wearing GearVR headsets while Mark Zuckerberg strolls past[1]. [1] http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/22/16/3173A1BA00000578-0-image-a-4_1456157766857.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/22/16/3173A1BA0000057...

lisper 10y ago

Here's a data point: I was working at JPL when it instituted an internal usenet newsgroup (this was the mid-90s) for discussing work-related issues. It was initially anonymous to encourage people to speak frankly. Almost immediately it devolved into a cesspool of insults and epithets. It was my first experience with this phenomenon, and at the time I was shocked by it. (Nowadays, of course, this sort of thing is just business and usual on the internet.) After a month or two it got so bad that management decided to remove the anonymity. The tone of the group changed literally overnight, and people started behaving in a civil manner. The sad fact of the matter is that if you want human beings to behave, you have to be able to hold them accountable.

ameister14 10y ago
There is also a difference between anonymity where no profile or pseudo-identity is created and one where you have an identity that you carry with you as you use a service or forum.
- lisper 10y ago
  True. The JPL forum was anonymous, not pseudonymous (which made it very confusing in addition to being a civility train wreck). Pseudonyms offer some limited accountability because it allows people to ignore postings from a particular source. But you still need some enforcement. For example, there has to be some sort of cost associated with creating a new pseudonym, otherwise trolls will just keep creating new ones.
gertef 10y ago
and people also became afraid to express themselves candidly. the solution is moderation and leadership, not forcing identity. but that is expensive, so owners don't want it.

EekSnakePond 10y ago

Thought experiment from 2,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges Until the Internet can guarantee that I will not be targeted by petulant ideological zealots obsessed with doxxing people to win online arguments, Goons who infiltrate the State Department to steer it's considerable resources against it's political enemies, social justice warriors who try to get people fired because someone doesn't agree with Rachel Maddow, or state agencies who scour my tax records to Al Capone me, I'll keep whatever anonymity I can preserve, thank you very much. EDIT: I'll happily deal with an endless torrent of honest deplorables who occasionally troll every so often over politically-motivated psychopaths any day of the week.

LordKano 10y ago

I have been using this pseudonym online for over 20 years. I have been using it for so long that I have since found others who have started using it too but there are far fewer of them than there are of people who share my actual first and last name. I am a member of a Facebook group that has over 60 members who share the same first and last name. So, it's more descriptive when I use this pseudonym than it is when I use my real name. I'm only aware of about 3-4 people using this pseudonym but more than 60 who use my real name.

pessimizer 10y ago

The only reason using real names affects behavior is because people fear retaliation, so the policy suppresses behavior likely to offend people and groups with the known will and ability to retaliate. This, to the powerful, is equivalent to improving behavior. edit: what's the alternate proposed mechanism? There's no magic in a name other than a method to track people and hold them responsible.

Paperweight 10y ago

Can't ID'd and anonymous forums coexist?

webXL 10y ago

If harassment is a social and cultural problem, then in my view, so is the desire for anonymity, which is a natural byproduct that aids both sides. Banning anonymity would negatively impact both sides. But who is harmed more? And who is harmed more in the other scenario? The article just focuses on one side of the former. Sure certain individuals need more protection if a real name policy is enforced, but at least it's easier to identify and punish the bigots. That said, I don't think pseudonyms should be banned in order to prevent harassment, but where people go to discuss complex and sensitive topics, I would expect to see more thoughtful responses from a Real Name vs. a_guy_with_nothing_to_lose, barring a decent karma system.

EekSnakePond 10y ago

Step -1.) Demand real name's to protect the childrens. Step 0.) We did it! Everyone has to use real names now! Equality unlocked! Step 1.) Put in someone else's real name instead of your own. Step 2.) Troll as that person or use that real name to infiltrate that person's social network Step lulz.) Doxx brigade/morality police now target the wrong person. Step 3.) Congratulations, not only did you not solve the problem you were trying to solve, now your rules are a robust breeding ground to cause actual social and economic damage to people YOU ALREADY AGREE WITH because "pixels are feelings, too". Step 4.) Hang your head in shame for such short-term thinking. Step 5.) Downvote me because of tone.

PretzelFisch 10y ago
so, make them prove their id. Sure it doesn't scale but now you would have to actually steal someone's identity rather than just use a fake name.
- EekSnakePond 10y ago
  Sometimes, I can't tell if the newer generation understands that Photoshop is a thing or not. Also, I'm pretty sure they have no idea that when you create a massive repository of identities to try and protect the childrens, you're just painting a huge bullseye on the back of it's database. It's like people believe Russians hacked the election, but no one could EVER hack a central repository of identities! Why, it's protected by good intentions and saving the childrens! Oh hey, another 1 billion Yahoo! identities got leaked...

DelaneyM 10y ago

The problem isn't just discrimination/harassment (though that's huge - I used to use a male pseudonym on my github & stackoverflow accounts, and still do on medium.) It's also just pragmatically impossible. I have changed my first name legally three times. I have changed my last name once. I currently have different legal names in three countries, on my undergraduate & masters degrees, and on my 401k, and none of those are the name I am known by to my colleagues & friends. What is my "real name"?

quirkafleeg 10y ago
Frank Abagnale?
- DelaneyM 10y ago
  Hah - if I'd changed my name so often for malicious intent, instead of family & marriage reasons, it'd probably be much more rationally arranged. Not having a canonical "real name" is a giant PITA.
mjevans 10y ago
Your GIN (Government Issued Number), be it an SSN, SIN, or anything else. At least, as far as the one most easy to use against you.

swagv1 10y ago

Facebook drank the Kool-Aid and failed.