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> Mastodon [...] No real name policies Lacking a very rarefied community capable of self-moderation, like this site has or some specialized reddits and forums,
by cornholio 9y ago
> Mastodon [...] No real name policies
Lacking a very rarefied community capable of self-moderation, like this site has or some specialized reddits and forums, the no-real-name becomes a major drawback. A minority of douche-bags will generate a majority of noise and will come to shape that world in their image.
This is quite visible when browsing Mastodon instances, many of which look like a crossbreed of 4chan with Myspace. Most accounts don't have a real picture. The fact people assumed their real identities, cared about what they said and did, and that you could find real people knowing only their name was one of the key ingredients to the success of early Facebook.
Furthermore, the whole "no data collected" has any value from the perspective of the user only when using real names. Otherwise, I really couldn't care less about data attached to an anonymous account.
- bitumen 9y agoThe real name policy doesn’t seem to stop duplicate accounts, bots, and spammers on FaceBook or Twitter, it just ensures they have vaguely human names.
- cornholio 9y agoThat's quite a different issue, is it not? The spam bots come because the social network is successful, as they will come to any other network regardless of real name policy. What I'm saying is that anonymous accounts will prevent that success in the first place, because of the behavior of non-spam users. At least for a mass market product most regular folk would want to use, like Facebook.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Paul-ish 9y agoWe don't know what the services would look like without a real name policy.
- gaius 9y agoThe real name policy is barely enforced by FB, as long as a name is basically plausible they don’t even bother.
- pyjammas 9y ago> Furthermore, the whole "no data collected" has any value from the perspective of the user only when using real names. That might be true for you, but I've more than once had to ditch an old nick because over time I'd let slip enough specifics that identifying me would be (theoretically) possible. It's all a matter of degrees, but 'no data collected' is definitely valuable.
- 215163831328308 9y agoYeah, that's why I switched to using just random names. Old nicknames and gamertags became even easily googleable.
- burner8309 9y agoYou can create your own Mastodon instance that enforces a real name policy.
- rainbowmverse 9y agoUnfortunately, real and legal are often conflated by people making and supporting these policies. Many of those names may in fact be real even if they don't match your expectations of what a real name looks like. I can't use my real name on Facebook because I can't get a legal name change. So I don't use Facebook.