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Would Anonymity Help Activists On Facebook? Maybe Not
- jdp23 16y agoI agree that everybody (not just activists) should be allowed pseudonymity on Facebook. But his argument that "it could lull many into a false sense of security, encourage complacency, and actually put people at more risk" is just silly. Activists are using Facebook today; giving them more rights can only help them.
- notahacker 16y agoSurely the common sense solution is to keep the no-pseudonyms policy but use some discretion and not ban peaceful pro-democracy protestors whose passive protest group was favourably received by the world's media.
- jdp23 16y agoIt seems to me the common sense solution is to remove the no-pseudonyms policy, which in addition to activists also impacts domestic violence survivors, authors, performers, transvestites, whistleblowers, and many others.
- notahacker 16y agoDoing that also legitimises fake celebrities, sockpuppets and dedicated stalking accounts. It's pretty fundamental to Facebook's value proposition that the identities (usually) represent a graph of real people and their social relationships and interests (more or less the opposite of the sometimes intentional anarchy of popular internet fora) I don't think authors and performers who are offered the more appropriate option of Facebook fan pages or domestic violence survivors who connect under a single assumed name have too much to worry about from Facebook policies applied reasonably.
- r00fus 16y agoSo this means there is a business opportunity for another social networking site that can both offer pseudonyms as well as deal with the problems you mention (which btw, are not exactly solved by Facebook's policy, though they are discouraged). I agree Facebook is unlikely to ever rescind their "real name" policy.