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With the wealth of data that Facebook has on you, I'm confident they could figure out your name even if they didn't enforce a real name policy. > Nobody is pre

With the wealth of data that Facebook has on you, I'm confident they could figure out your name even if they didn't enforce a real name policy. > Nobody is pretending. Just because some people are willing to still troll under their real names does not mean it doesn't have a substantive impact on people's behavior. Heck, I personally have seen the difference in my own activity on Reddit (where I'm anonymous) and HN (where I'm not). I definitely hold myself to a higher standard here, even when arguments get heated, because this is part of my professional profile (and Reddit is not).

newscracker 10y ago
> With the wealth of data that Facebook has on you, I'm confident they could figure out your name even if they didn't enforce a real name policy. You seem to be making assumptions based on how you operate in the world and attributing superpowers to Facebook where there are none. I know people with Facebook accounts where their real name is not listed anywhere on the profile or in communications they have with others. These people do not fill in things like email address, phone number, place of work and other data that can be linked with address book uploads by other users. The people in these people's friends list are ok with communicating with the "non-real name" and haven't snitched even when Facebook tried to get them to. > Just because some people are willing to still troll under their real names does not mean it doesn't have a substantive impact on people's behavior. Heck, I personally have seen the difference in my own activity on Reddit (where I'm anonymous) and HN (where I'm not). I definitely hold myself to a higher standard here, even when arguments get heated, because this is part of my professional profile (and Reddit is not). It's not just some people. I never said that all people who use real names behave badly on social names. But many do (as I said above, not just a few exceptions). Real names is a facade that Facebook uses to get more information about people, and does not influence bad behavior negatively in many cases. And your behavior and how you conduct yourself with respect to the use of real name or otherwise on different platforms is your choice. It has no bearing on what others do.

newscracker 10y ago

> With the wealth of data that Facebook has on you, I'm confident they could figure out your name even if they didn't enforce a real name policy. You seem to be making assumptions based on how you operate in the world and attributing superpowers to Facebook where there are none. I know people with Facebook accounts where their real name is not listed anywhere on the profile or in communications they have with others. These people do not fill in things like email address, phone number, place of work and other data that can be linked with address book uploads by other users. The people in these people's friends list are ok with communicating with the "non-real name" and haven't snitched even when Facebook tried to get them to. > Just because some people are willing to still troll under their real names does not mean it doesn't have a substantive impact on people's behavior. Heck, I personally have seen the difference in my own activity on Reddit (where I'm anonymous) and HN (where I'm not). I definitely hold myself to a higher standard here, even when arguments get heated, because this is part of my professional profile (and Reddit is not). It's not just some people. I never said that all people who use real names behave badly on social names. But many do (as I said above, not just a few exceptions). Real names is a facade that Facebook uses to get more information about people, and does not influence bad behavior negatively in many cases. And your behavior and how you conduct yourself with respect to the use of real name or otherwise on different platforms is your choice. It has no bearing on what others do.