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I didn't quite get the need for anonymity until I was at SXSW and watched danah's opening talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl0VANhnvxk http://www.youtube.co

by tibbon 15y ago

I didn't quite get the need for anonymity until I was at SXSW and watched danah's opening talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl0VANhnvxk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl0VANhnvxk) and talked to her a bit more about it afterward. I realized how incredibly privileged and rare my situation is that I can live my life fairly openly online with little fear of repercussion. - As a heterosexual no one questions my sexual orientation online, or will harass me for it. Photos of me with a significant other won't cause an issue with anyone. - I don't have, nor have I ever had an abusive relationship in which I must distance myself from someone. - I'm fortunate enough to live in a country that (generally) allows me to do whatever online and I don't need to fear for my life. I am also a native born citizen here and don't have any immigration issues to deal with. - I don't fear for my job because of what I say online (my work situation is very understanding and isn't nosy). Of course, not everyone works in technology. - I have no children to protect - I also feel that I understand the internet rather well and generally have a feeling for the direct repercussions of something that I do. These (and many other things) aren't true for everyone. I felt silly for not realizing it beforehand, partially because danah had hung out at my house at hackathons and such even, and I just didn't get it until her presentation.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
There is a place for anonymous and public social networks. There are dozens of online forums and websites for gay teenagers, for example. People at risk just treat the internet the same way they treat the analog. Talk to people you can trust, in places that are private (and anonymous).
Alex3917 15y ago
A lot of these policies really strike me as White Supremacism 2.0. To quote Wikipedia: "White supremacy, as with racial supremacism in general, is rooted in ethnocentrism and a desire for hegemony." In other words, white supremacism isn't about white people per se. Rather, it's about promoting one culture as the dominant one while trying to suppress all other cultures. That's exactly what these policies are doing.
- davidw 15y ago
  From a real name policy to "White Supremacy" is quite a leap. I think back on planet earth, what's more likely is that the people who created these systems are insisting on real names to solve one sort of problem without thinking about the other problems it may cause, rather than "a desire for hegemony" or "promoting one culture as the dominant one".
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    Your parent's point of view is the current extension of political correctness taken to it's extreme. That is to say, the world is steadily being encroached by the idea that not expressly considering a minority in a decision is the same as actively campaigning against them.
    - pyre 15y ago
      Well, Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that people that don't use their real name are Bad People(tm). (1000 thanks to whoever can conjure up a link to that quote) Personally, that seems like he's attacking anyone that opposes his idea of trying to force people into using real names. The same can't be said of other systems (Google+, Quora, etc) to my knowledge.
      - pyre 15y ago
        Here's a link: http://michaelzimmer.org/2010/05/14/facebooks-zuckerberg-having-two-identities-for-yourself-is-an-example-of-a-lack-of-integrity/ http://michaelzimmer.org/2010/05/14/facebooks-zuckerberg-hav... Zuckerberg thinks that anyone that has two identities for themselves has a 'lack of integrity.'
    - adw 15y ago
      Or - and this is taking the opposite polemical position to yours - that designing systems without empathy is reprehensible. I lean more to the latter but that doesn't mean what you claim is entirely false either. It's not as simple as anyone paints it, and what's more, it's an area where short-term economic incentives are often drastically misaligned with both goals of personal autonomy and, more arguably, long-term success of a community and product. But unrestrained personal autonomy gets you 4chan. The real problem is trying to flatten the richness of human experience to fit through TweetBook+ (or whatever comes next). No easy answers and the problem ain't going away.
silverbax88 15y ago
I can't tell you how heartening it is to read your post, because it means that people can realize the error of something like this and change their beliefs. People who keep claiming that "we live in public" and that everything is out there anyway are extremely naive.
- hvs 15y ago
  And are usually adult, white, heterosexual males in technology (like me). It wasn't until I got married that I realized how naive some of the beliefs that I had held my whole life.
tlb 15y ago
Is there any evidence that having a strong online presence under your real name increases danger to your children?
- exogen 15y ago
  I think the implication is that his children would also have to use their real names (but I don't know how the bill actually deals with minors).
  - tlb 15y ago
    So is there evidence that children are at a higher risk of being kidnapped (or some other bad thing) if their info is public? There was some tabloid scaremongering to this effect in the early days of the Internet, but there are now enough kids online that there should be enough data to confirm or refute this myth.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  Having a strong online presence means putting up pictures of what's important to you. That means that pictures of your kids are out there and traceable to you. Personally, I don't think that it increases any danger to kids, I use my real name and post pictures of my adorable kids all the time, but I respect those who feel differently.
  - derefr 15y ago
    > Having a strong online presence means putting up pictures of what's important to you. That means that pictures of your kids are out there and traceable to you. It does? I have a blog, a well-used Facebook profile, an active twitter account, and I comment on Reddit and HN all the time—but the last picture of me that exists on the public internet is from 2005. All the photos I actually want to share with my family are in a shared folder in my Dropbox account. I guess I have a strong mental separation of my public and private lives; I would never talk about my family on my blog, nor would I talk about my job on Facebook.
    - 15y ago
marquis 15y ago
Also you're not female. Have a feminine name in a male-dominated environment adds to suspicion (is that a guy masquerading as girl?) and (mostly harmless and unintended) gender-bias comments or, what I feel is even worse, special attention. The larger reason I don't post publicly with my real name is that, quite frankly, what I have to say in public needs to be in context. If you google my name and it comes up with a bunch of comments, and you don't take the time to read the context then it's very, very easy to come to a false conclusion of a person's beliefs. Disclaimer: I use my real name in g+ but I don't post publicly and disable my posts to be shared. I'm no dissident but I value my searchable-privacy and so do my friends. I post more in g+ than I ever did in Facebook because of the circles feature. Last quick note: I've had seemingly innocuous content that was searchable on my name used against me, a long time ago. I've since taken great care to remain anonymous and have found that my use of public forums is far more free and enjoyable and I have no issues at all speaking with others whose names I do not know (HN as a case).
nirvana 15y ago
Thank you for that link. My feelings on this matter were set when I was a young child. I read about the Nazi era in germany, and why homosexuals were much less likely to survive than jews. The answer was, ironically, due to how liberal Germany was about homosexuality in the 1920s. Many gay people came out of the closet, there were magazines and national organizations to support various groups of gay and lesbian people and their interests. When the nazis came to power, they went to the offices of these magazines and groups and got the lists of all the members, and then they went and systematically executed every one of them. Now, we don't live in a nazi regime, of course. But there are many, much less severe, things that can be done to people, from employment discrimination to harassment. The old saying, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" describes a feature, not a bug. It lets dogs participate with people, without fear of being harassed by cats, or whatever. It also keeps the topic on the topic at hand, not on the question of whether dogs should be allowed on the internet. Privacy is good for the community. It is good for everybody. Even if you don't have a fascist government that wants to spy on you.

by tibbon 15y ago

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

There is a place for anonymous and public social networks. There are dozens of online forums and websites for gay teenagers, for example. People at risk just treat the internet the same way they treat the analog. Talk to people you can trust, in places that are private (and anonymous).

Alex3917 15y ago

A lot of these policies really strike me as White Supremacism 2.0. To quote Wikipedia: "White supremacy, as with racial supremacism in general, is rooted in ethnocentrism and a desire for hegemony." In other words, white supremacism isn't about white people per se. Rather, it's about promoting one culture as the dominant one while trying to suppress all other cultures. That's exactly what these policies are doing.

davidw 15y ago
From a real name policy to "White Supremacy" is quite a leap. I think back on planet earth, what's more likely is that the people who created these systems are insisting on real names to solve one sort of problem without thinking about the other problems it may cause, rather than "a desire for hegemony" or "promoting one culture as the dominant one".
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Your parent's point of view is the current extension of political correctness taken to it's extreme. That is to say, the world is steadily being encroached by the idea that not expressly considering a minority in a decision is the same as actively campaigning against them.
  - pyre 15y ago
    Well, Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that people that don't use their real name are Bad People(tm). (1000 thanks to whoever can conjure up a link to that quote) Personally, that seems like he's attacking anyone that opposes his idea of trying to force people into using real names. The same can't be said of other systems (Google+, Quora, etc) to my knowledge.
    - pyre 15y ago
      Here's a link: http://michaelzimmer.org/2010/05/14/facebooks-zuckerberg-having-two-identities-for-yourself-is-an-example-of-a-lack-of-integrity/ http://michaelzimmer.org/2010/05/14/facebooks-zuckerberg-hav... Zuckerberg thinks that anyone that has two identities for themselves has a 'lack of integrity.'
  - adw 15y ago
    Or - and this is taking the opposite polemical position to yours - that designing systems without empathy is reprehensible. I lean more to the latter but that doesn't mean what you claim is entirely false either. It's not as simple as anyone paints it, and what's more, it's an area where short-term economic incentives are often drastically misaligned with both goals of personal autonomy and, more arguably, long-term success of a community and product. But unrestrained personal autonomy gets you 4chan. The real problem is trying to flatten the richness of human experience to fit through TweetBook+ (or whatever comes next). No easy answers and the problem ain't going away.

silverbax88 15y ago

I can't tell you how heartening it is to read your post, because it means that people can realize the error of something like this and change their beliefs. People who keep claiming that "we live in public" and that everything is out there anyway are extremely naive.

hvs 15y ago
And are usually adult, white, heterosexual males in technology (like me). It wasn't until I got married that I realized how naive some of the beliefs that I had held my whole life.

tlb 15y ago

Is there any evidence that having a strong online presence under your real name increases danger to your children?

exogen 15y ago
I think the implication is that his children would also have to use their real names (but I don't know how the bill actually deals with minors).
- tlb 15y ago
  So is there evidence that children are at a higher risk of being kidnapped (or some other bad thing) if their info is public? There was some tabloid scaremongering to this effect in the early days of the Internet, but there are now enough kids online that there should be enough data to confirm or refute this myth.
MartinCron 15y ago
Having a strong online presence means putting up pictures of what's important to you. That means that pictures of your kids are out there and traceable to you. Personally, I don't think that it increases any danger to kids, I use my real name and post pictures of my adorable kids all the time, but I respect those who feel differently.
- derefr 15y ago
  > Having a strong online presence means putting up pictures of what's important to you. That means that pictures of your kids are out there and traceable to you. It does? I have a blog, a well-used Facebook profile, an active twitter account, and I comment on Reddit and HN all the time—but the last picture of me that exists on the public internet is from 2005. All the photos I actually want to share with my family are in a shared folder in my Dropbox account. I guess I have a strong mental separation of my public and private lives; I would never talk about my family on my blog, nor would I talk about my job on Facebook.
  - 15y ago

marquis 15y ago

Also you're not female. Have a feminine name in a male-dominated environment adds to suspicion (is that a guy masquerading as girl?) and (mostly harmless and unintended) gender-bias comments or, what I feel is even worse, special attention. The larger reason I don't post publicly with my real name is that, quite frankly, what I have to say in public needs to be in context. If you google my name and it comes up with a bunch of comments, and you don't take the time to read the context then it's very, very easy to come to a false conclusion of a person's beliefs. Disclaimer: I use my real name in g+ but I don't post publicly and disable my posts to be shared. I'm no dissident but I value my searchable-privacy and so do my friends. I post more in g+ than I ever did in Facebook because of the circles feature. Last quick note: I've had seemingly innocuous content that was searchable on my name used against me, a long time ago. I've since taken great care to remain anonymous and have found that my use of public forums is far more free and enjoyable and I have no issues at all speaking with others whose names I do not know (HN as a case).

nirvana 15y ago

Thank you for that link. My feelings on this matter were set when I was a young child. I read about the Nazi era in germany, and why homosexuals were much less likely to survive than jews. The answer was, ironically, due to how liberal Germany was about homosexuality in the 1920s. Many gay people came out of the closet, there were magazines and national organizations to support various groups of gay and lesbian people and their interests. When the nazis came to power, they went to the offices of these magazines and groups and got the lists of all the members, and then they went and systematically executed every one of them. Now, we don't live in a nazi regime, of course. But there are many, much less severe, things that can be done to people, from employment discrimination to harassment. The old saying, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" describes a feature, not a bug. It lets dogs participate with people, without fear of being harassed by cats, or whatever. It also keeps the topic on the topic at hand, not on the question of whether dogs should be allowed on the internet. Privacy is good for the community. It is good for everybody. Even if you don't have a fascist government that wants to spy on you.