3 ms·

Thats exactly the problem with Facebook - no firewalls between the various personas of an individual.

by 2sk21 7y ago

johnchristopher 7y ago
I'd say that's not really the problem with Facebook (well it is but bear with me): long ago, at the end of the 90's, it was highly recommended to use pseudonyms on the Internet because `you never know who's who` and well.. it was right and we didn't know what the Internet could really do. When Facebook/Gmail happened and people were nudged to use their real names... because we need `real` connections. Well, that didn't tipped enough of us. Facebook was the tinder of the day, right ? But then the whole privacy thing came back to bite us hard (and will bite harder in the coming years). So we are back to using pseudonyms (which according to my friend's 11yo daughter's guide to the Internet everyone should use anyway) as the default. Except for professional things. We need a professional Internet presence, hello LinkedIn and $name $familyname + 'pro' Facebook account. Now there was an argument that with everything in the open then people would get more tolerant about other's mischievings and out-of-the-accepted-norm behavior. Big nope as a whole it turned out. Anyway, youth of today have figured it out years ago and just have multiple personas with different accounts. With different accounts, not with different circles or different sharing settings. And of course with silly names. Like you said Facebook isn't designed around the various personas of an individual but increasingly during the last decade the whole Internet community makers (software builders and evangelists and users) were misled on the `true identity` thing and we are only slowly assessing the damage and recovering. What I mean to say is: everyone was on board with not having various personas. Latest large scale attempt to overcome this failed hard (Google's circles) because people don't want to micro-manage their online Rolodex and it turns out you can't trust Google to respect that firewall anyway (see the cases about people being outed as transgenders). Only pseudonyms and different accounts can alleviate that and it's going to happen more because most of people will get back to that mindset.
- kibwen 7y ago
  I've considered taking pseudonymity one step further by moving it into the real world, and having one name for legal documents and another (or two) for personal use (think Earthsea rules). Seems to work for a few hackers I know, and the best part is that it doesn't require any legal name change rigamarole, since nobody can stop you from just start calling yourself whatever you want whenever you want. For me anyway, it was quite surprisingly freeing to realize that there's no reason that the name on my birth certificate has to have anything to do with the name I choose to present to people.
  - thedanbob 7y ago
    Huh, I guess I already do this in a small way: I'm "Dan" socially and "Daniel" for anything that requires my signature. I don't think I'd be brave enough to take it further though. Most systems/companies/govt agencies are flexible enough that it doesn't matter if I put the wrong one down, but making a mistake with two completely different names could be problematic.
    - kibwen 7y ago
      Yes, when providing your name to an entity it takes manual consideration to decide whether or not that entity has any good reason to try to associate you with the name the government knows you by (your legal name). I'd give my legal name when setting up a bank account, but not when setting up a Facebook or Twitter account (who might ask for legal ID, but then I don't need those accounts anyway).
- karatestomp 7y ago
  I always took at least part of Zuck's infamous "dumb fucks" comment to be prompted by people violating what were such basic rules of social Internet behavior at the time: do not post real, identifiable shit about yourself, do not use your real name, and so on. They were "dumb fucks" because they were, and were acting like, such Internet n00bs. Now that stuff's normal, in large part thanks to Facebook, and it causes all kinds of problems.
mr_gibbins 7y ago
Completely agree. My persona at work and at university are two separate things. My persona when I come home and interact with my kids is different to my persona when I'm arguing with a colleague about database schematics. My political views are relevant with my friends but could cause problems with my employer. In reality we have many hats but Facebook restricts us to one and lets all our friends and family know our every interaction, too, promoting a false sense of ourselves. Zuckerberg said, in the OP's article, that (to paraphrase), it's only friends and family that know what you like/what you've been doing. Do you ring your nan every time you take a dump? Or text your brother when you're feeling horny? No. Facebook is blind to the individual facets of our characters.
NoGravitas 7y ago
The technical name for this is "context collapse", and it's not just Facebook, but social media more generally. https://indieweb.org/context_collapse https://indieweb.org/context_collapse http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2013/12/08/coining-context-collapse.html http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2013/12/08/coining... https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/01/10/context-collapse-a-literature-review/ https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/01/10/context-c...

Thats exactly the problem with Facebook - no firewalls between the various personas of an individual.

by 2sk21 7y ago

Thats exactly the problem with Facebook - no firewalls between the various personas of an individual.

I'd say that's not really the problem with Facebook (well it is but bear with me): long ago, at the end of the 90's, it was highly recommended to use pseudonyms on the Internet because `you never know who's who` and well.. it was right and we didn't know what the Internet could really do. When Facebook/Gmail happened and people were nudged to use their real names... because we need `real` connections. Well, that didn't tipped enough of us. Facebook was the tinder of the day, right ? But then the whole privacy thing came back to bite us hard (and will bite harder in the coming years). So we are back to using pseudonyms (which according to my friend's 11yo daughter's guide to the Internet everyone should use anyway) as the default. Except for professional things. We need a professional Internet presence, hello LinkedIn and $name $familyname + 'pro' Facebook account. Now there was an argument that with everything in the open then people would get more tolerant about other's mischievings and out-of-the-accepted-norm behavior. Big nope as a whole it turned out. Anyway, youth of today have figured it out years ago and just have multiple personas with different accounts. With different accounts, not with different circles or different sharing settings. And of course with silly names. Like you said Facebook isn't designed around the various personas of an individual but increasingly during the last decade the whole Internet community makers (software builders and evangelists and users) were misled on the `true identity` thing and we are only slowly assessing the damage and recovering. What I mean to say is: everyone was on board with not having various personas. Latest large scale attempt to overcome this failed hard (Google's circles) because people don't want to micro-manage their online Rolodex and it turns out you can't trust Google to respect that firewall anyway (see the cases about people being outed as transgenders). Only pseudonyms and different accounts can alleviate that and it's going to happen more because most of people will get back to that mindset.

kibwen 7y ago
I've considered taking pseudonymity one step further by moving it into the real world, and having one name for legal documents and another (or two) for personal use (think Earthsea rules). Seems to work for a few hackers I know, and the best part is that it doesn't require any legal name change rigamarole, since nobody can stop you from just start calling yourself whatever you want whenever you want. For me anyway, it was quite surprisingly freeing to realize that there's no reason that the name on my birth certificate has to have anything to do with the name I choose to present to people.
- thedanbob 7y ago
  Huh, I guess I already do this in a small way: I'm "Dan" socially and "Daniel" for anything that requires my signature. I don't think I'd be brave enough to take it further though. Most systems/companies/govt agencies are flexible enough that it doesn't matter if I put the wrong one down, but making a mistake with two completely different names could be problematic.
  - kibwen 7y ago
    Yes, when providing your name to an entity it takes manual consideration to decide whether or not that entity has any good reason to try to associate you with the name the government knows you by (your legal name). I'd give my legal name when setting up a bank account, but not when setting up a Facebook or Twitter account (who might ask for legal ID, but then I don't need those accounts anyway).
karatestomp 7y ago
I always took at least part of Zuck's infamous "dumb fucks" comment to be prompted by people violating what were such basic rules of social Internet behavior at the time: do not post real, identifiable shit about yourself, do not use your real name, and so on. They were "dumb fucks" because they were, and were acting like, such Internet n00bs. Now that stuff's normal, in large part thanks to Facebook, and it causes all kinds of problems.

mr_gibbins 7y ago

Completely agree. My persona at work and at university are two separate things. My persona when I come home and interact with my kids is different to my persona when I'm arguing with a colleague about database schematics. My political views are relevant with my friends but could cause problems with my employer. In reality we have many hats but Facebook restricts us to one and lets all our friends and family know our every interaction, too, promoting a false sense of ourselves. Zuckerberg said, in the OP's article, that (to paraphrase), it's only friends and family that know what you like/what you've been doing. Do you ring your nan every time you take a dump? Or text your brother when you're feeling horny? No. Facebook is blind to the individual facets of our characters.

NoGravitas 7y ago

The technical name for this is "context collapse", and it's not just Facebook, but social media more generally. https://indieweb.org/context_collapse https://indieweb.org/context_collapse http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2013/12/08/coining-context-collapse.html http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2013/12/08/coining... https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/01/10/context-collapse-a-literature-review/ https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/01/10/context-c...