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I get the concern, but I feel like there's an entire Internet out there where a real name isn't required... The fact that you have to use your real name is app

by jsulak 16y ago

I get the concern, but I feel like there's an entire Internet out there where a real name isn't required... The fact that you have to use your real name is apparent from the moment you sign up, and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

darklajid 16y ago
I don't know. Around here the adoption is slow (and I joined only recently, already toying with leaving again). Lots of people _don't_ use the real name, but instead obfuscate it at least. It might read out loud to something similar. It might be the last name in reverse. Or it might be entirely fictional. In my (limited..) network there you'll find 60-70% with names that don't match with the name on their ID, mostly foreign monikers and twisted plays on words that even (real, the offline variety) friends wouldn't have guessed. Requiring a real name and enforcing that would be a major strike against it, I guess. Sort of like the Blizzard 'let's try that on our forums' idea..
Gormo 16y ago
There's always been a continuum of anonymity on the internet. Outside Facebook, participants in online communities have to decide on a case-by-case basis how much of their 'real' identity to make available. Because almost all online activity has traditionally been open, indexed, and publicly accessible, this has been the primary way that people have 'protected' themselves. Facebook inverts this: it requires you to use your real identity at all times, but partitions the online social space into a set of closed, private chambers. Security comes from isolation rather than anonymity. Facebook has been increasingly successful at working its way into the mechanics of online communities in general, and I think this is a real threat to the unique potential of the internet as a social space. When physical boundaries are irrelevant and people are free to choose how to participate - not just how much - communities emerge that are qualitatively different from the ones we live in offline. But when Facebook's model applies the social constraints of the offline world to the internet, we lose that uniqueness.

by jsulak 16y ago

darklajid 16y ago

I don't know. Around here the adoption is slow (and I joined only recently, already toying with leaving again). Lots of people _don't_ use the real name, but instead obfuscate it at least. It might read out loud to something similar. It might be the last name in reverse. Or it might be entirely fictional. In my (limited..) network there you'll find 60-70% with names that don't match with the name on their ID, mostly foreign monikers and twisted plays on words that even (real, the offline variety) friends wouldn't have guessed. Requiring a real name and enforcing that would be a major strike against it, I guess. Sort of like the Blizzard 'let's try that on our forums' idea..

Gormo 16y ago

There's always been a continuum of anonymity on the internet. Outside Facebook, participants in online communities have to decide on a case-by-case basis how much of their 'real' identity to make available. Because almost all online activity has traditionally been open, indexed, and publicly accessible, this has been the primary way that people have 'protected' themselves. Facebook inverts this: it requires you to use your real identity at all times, but partitions the online social space into a set of closed, private chambers. Security comes from isolation rather than anonymity. Facebook has been increasingly successful at working its way into the mechanics of online communities in general, and I think this is a real threat to the unique potential of the internet as a social space. When physical boundaries are irrelevant and people are free to choose how to participate - not just how much - communities emerge that are qualitatively different from the ones we live in offline. But when Facebook's model applies the social constraints of the offline world to the internet, we lose that uniqueness.