4 ms·

The scenario where a person doesn't want to use their real name because they are fleeing an abusive relationship or are they are a rape survivor, etc I don't ha

The scenario where a person doesn't want to use their real name because they are fleeing an abusive relationship or are they are a rape survivor, etc I don't have a solution for. But for everyone else god forbid that you have to think twice before posting something on the Internet. I use my real name for basically everything online (save video game networks which is more just out of habit really) and I try to consciously filter myself because I know I am writing in ink. Short of the extreme edge cases where a person is attempting to hide from someone because they fear for their life, the main argument against using real names always seems to boil down to someone waiting to share something radical and controversial but not having it tied to their physical persona. Social networks like Facebook and Google+ are more about those close connected relationships that you would get if you lived in a small town (at least that is how I look at them) and if someone wants to spew their ideas anonymously then let them find another saloon in the wild wild west that is the Internet.

Hyena 15y ago
No they're not. In the area of real names, they're mostly about enabling people you didn't give your nickname to find you and therefore complete the social graph.
- reidmain 15y ago
  That is a good point. I didn't think about how I made a lot of the connections with my friends on the Internet. Most of my Google+ connections are from email addresses I knew beforehand or links spewed out on Twitter. How I got a lot of these in the old days were probably through nicknames.
AJ007 15y ago
Lets have an honest conversation here. The only reason why Google and Facebook want your real identity is because of marketing dollars. I should know, because my company makes a lot of money from being able to identify individuals in the audience we advertise to. The more I know about my audience, the more money my company makes. They are the same audience whether I know who they are or not, but when I know who they are, I know not only what they will buy but what triggers will push them in to that position that they buy. In the old days you gave your friends your pseudonyms. My friends knew mine and I knew theirs. That is the way public communication should be. We don't walk around outside giving everyone we see a brochure with our full name, city of residence, and pictures of everything we've said in the past year -- we certainly shouldn't do it online where the information is as easily accessible by someone in your hometown as it is a Mexican kidnapping gang.
- reidmain 15y ago
  I won't be naive and say they don't want it for that exact reason. I am not Google's customer and I realize this. I am getting a good service from them for free for their ability to use the information I am providing. We don't walk around giving everyone we see a brochure of all that information because most people don't want it. Heck even your friends don't want a lot of it. I'll give my name out to anyone who asks, my address and pictures out to those I trust. I see the Internet as a untrusted source. I don't post my address online (although I'm sure it is available somehow i.e. yellow pages or through some government service) and all the pictures and ideas I share are targeted primarily at my friends but I realize that once it is out there I shouldn't be afraid of someone else getting their hands on it.
  - Andrew_Quentin 15y ago
    Your address may be on yell or some government website but of course the only way one can identify a certain address as being yours from the millions of addresses that yell or the government provides publicly is by knowing your real name. You said you do not post your address online, but by posting or using your real name, you are effectively posting your address also.
    - reidmain 15y ago
      It definitely narrows the search quite a bit. The concern would be if you posted stuff online that alluded to your physical location as well. Or if you name is so unique that there are only a few people who share it.
    - shabble 15y ago
      If you own any sort of vanity domain, "At least annually, a registrar must present to the registrant the current Whois information, and remind the registrant that provision of false Whois information can be grounds for cancellation of their domain name registration. Registrants must review their Whois data, and make any corrections." http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/wdrp.htm http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/wdrp.htm and whois is a 5-second task. I'm not sure where the 'registered by a private individual' details masking services fit into it, I assume there's some provision for personal privacy, but I'm not 100% certain. Anyone to whom I give my email address can very easily find my full name, phone number and current address. I should really check out some of those masking services.
timwiseman 15y ago
Short of the extreme edge cases where a person is attempting to hide from someone because they fear for their life, the main argument against using real names always seems to boil down to someone waiting to share something radical and controversial but not having it tied to their physical persona. May I point out that those extreme edge cases, while rare, are also extremely important? That person fleeing an abusive relationship is probably far more in need of a swift effective communications medium to get social support, practical advice and even to just plain tell their story than most people are. And you are forgetting other cases that are just a touch less extreme but still relevant. The young adult struggling with their orientation may be desperate to avoid having certain people discover this fact while equally desperate to find others in a similar situation for that support and advice. I am the first to say that Google and Facebook are private businesses and how they handle their business is up to them, but if we are going to have a real discussion of the reprecussions of their decisions then we need to remember that these edge cases are real and they are important.
- reidmain 15y ago
  You are right. I didn't mean to downplay these edge cases as much as I did. Is the concern that Facebook and Google's decisions are going to permeate so far it will become common place or that because these two social networks are the big dogs that it is unfair (for lack of a better word) for the edges cases to not be able to participate?
  - timwiseman 15y ago
    I think some of both. Many sites that accept comments now encourage commenters to log in with their facebook accounts, so that can be a major factor. I hve not seen it yet, but I suspect something similar will happen as G+ leaves beta and becomes more established with it. Also, as I have read in other commenters, a social network is only valuable if your friends are on it, so while alternatives exist it may be hard to find the people you need to find on them.
    - reidmain 15y ago
jerf 15y ago
You don't seem to have made an actual argument there. You say: "the main argument against using real names always seems to boil down to someone waiting to share something radical and controversial but not having it tied to their physical persona." But you seem to just take it as a given that the idea that someone may want that, or that it may be a social good to protect that, is so bizarre and far out that an argument need not even be made, it's sufficient just to state it. Well, I disagree. People should be able to say controversial things without any fear, and I can give you two enormous use cases: Democracy, and childhood. Democracies need to be able to freely debate things that are, by definition, controversial, to function at all. Children need to be able to say stupid things without them being tagged by them for the next fifty years. I'm pretty confident you haven't got an argument more powerful than those... and "reidmain gets annoyed when he sees things (s)he thinks are stupid on the Internet" certainly isn't it.
- reidmain 15y ago
  If it sounded like I was saying that anything someone wants to share anonymously is not worth being shared then I apologize. I see the need to be able to say something controversial and not fear reprisal. My main argument was that services like Facebook and Google+ are not geared towards that. It is a personal opinion but it is just how I see these sites being used. Things like EA Spouse definitely need to have the ability to exist on the internet. I just don't think that this woman would need to be able to share it on her Google+ account.
ristretto 15y ago
1) Would you use it equally deliberately if your name was something like "Mustafa Al Zawahiri" in 2002? 2) Do you have any documented cases where using your real name had any advantage over using "reidmain"? 3) Social networks are not really a choice, trend-setters usually herd everyone else. 4) What's your name?
- reidmain 15y ago
  1) That is a good question. I would like to think I would because I would want to prove to those who stereotype that I am not an exception but like any of those difficult scenarios I will not presume my ideals would hold. 2) The only other pseudonym I've ever used is my gamer handle of Warmain. I would say that whenever I made a friend on a video game and we got close enough that we thought to exchange real names it forged a closer bond because it seemed to humanize you a bit more. But then again in video games there are names like xxxDragonSlayerzz. I think the pseudonyms people are complaining about using are not so dehumanizing. 4) My name is Reid. Pleasure to meet you.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ristretto 15y ago
    You're cheating; you didn't give me your full name. That's because it doesn't matter in communities outside your close group of friends. And the more i know about you, the more i 'm bound to apply my racist stereotypes to you. What if I am a persian who supports Ahmad18stan? I think there are better ways to have spirited discussions than saying "real names solve everything"; They don't, we should be able to do better with an efficient text filter. The internet is revolutionary because it is flat. Personal name weight, honorary knighthoods, twitter followers or criminal past should not weigh on someone's opinion.
pnathan 15y ago
No, I really only want my real name tied to professional activities and a few other areas where name /matters/. Honest. Everything else, I am content to slip away from the Big Search Spotlight in the sky.
- reidmain 15y ago
  I understand not wanting to use your real name everywhere. Do you not want to use services like Facebook or Google+ or you would use them if they allowed pseudonyms?
  - pnathan 15y ago
    I refuse to use Facebook, because they have pursued a strategy of sharing data; multiple statements by high-level FB execs suggest that privacy is not a corporate value. Although I've had to set up a sock puppet to be able to see certain pages. :-( I see Google as being a company that values privacy, but inherently knows a good deal more than I am comfortable with. I have accounts on LinkedIn, G+, and StackOverflow that are strictly "professional persona", for the purpose of networking only.

Hyena 15y ago

No they're not. In the area of real names, they're mostly about enabling people you didn't give your nickname to find you and therefore complete the social graph.

reidmain 15y ago
That is a good point. I didn't think about how I made a lot of the connections with my friends on the Internet. Most of my Google+ connections are from email addresses I knew beforehand or links spewed out on Twitter. How I got a lot of these in the old days were probably through nicknames.

AJ007 15y ago

Lets have an honest conversation here. The only reason why Google and Facebook want your real identity is because of marketing dollars. I should know, because my company makes a lot of money from being able to identify individuals in the audience we advertise to. The more I know about my audience, the more money my company makes. They are the same audience whether I know who they are or not, but when I know who they are, I know not only what they will buy but what triggers will push them in to that position that they buy. In the old days you gave your friends your pseudonyms. My friends knew mine and I knew theirs. That is the way public communication should be. We don't walk around outside giving everyone we see a brochure with our full name, city of residence, and pictures of everything we've said in the past year -- we certainly shouldn't do it online where the information is as easily accessible by someone in your hometown as it is a Mexican kidnapping gang.

reidmain 15y ago
I won't be naive and say they don't want it for that exact reason. I am not Google's customer and I realize this. I am getting a good service from them for free for their ability to use the information I am providing. We don't walk around giving everyone we see a brochure of all that information because most people don't want it. Heck even your friends don't want a lot of it. I'll give my name out to anyone who asks, my address and pictures out to those I trust. I see the Internet as a untrusted source. I don't post my address online (although I'm sure it is available somehow i.e. yellow pages or through some government service) and all the pictures and ideas I share are targeted primarily at my friends but I realize that once it is out there I shouldn't be afraid of someone else getting their hands on it.
- Andrew_Quentin 15y ago
  Your address may be on yell or some government website but of course the only way one can identify a certain address as being yours from the millions of addresses that yell or the government provides publicly is by knowing your real name. You said you do not post your address online, but by posting or using your real name, you are effectively posting your address also.
  - reidmain 15y ago
    It definitely narrows the search quite a bit. The concern would be if you posted stuff online that alluded to your physical location as well. Or if you name is so unique that there are only a few people who share it.
  - shabble 15y ago
    If you own any sort of vanity domain, "At least annually, a registrar must present to the registrant the current Whois information, and remind the registrant that provision of false Whois information can be grounds for cancellation of their domain name registration. Registrants must review their Whois data, and make any corrections." http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/wdrp.htm http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/wdrp.htm and whois is a 5-second task. I'm not sure where the 'registered by a private individual' details masking services fit into it, I assume there's some provision for personal privacy, but I'm not 100% certain. Anyone to whom I give my email address can very easily find my full name, phone number and current address. I should really check out some of those masking services.

timwiseman 15y ago

Short of the extreme edge cases where a person is attempting to hide from someone because they fear for their life, the main argument against using real names always seems to boil down to someone waiting to share something radical and controversial but not having it tied to their physical persona. May I point out that those extreme edge cases, while rare, are also extremely important? That person fleeing an abusive relationship is probably far more in need of a swift effective communications medium to get social support, practical advice and even to just plain tell their story than most people are. And you are forgetting other cases that are just a touch less extreme but still relevant. The young adult struggling with their orientation may be desperate to avoid having certain people discover this fact while equally desperate to find others in a similar situation for that support and advice. I am the first to say that Google and Facebook are private businesses and how they handle their business is up to them, but if we are going to have a real discussion of the reprecussions of their decisions then we need to remember that these edge cases are real and they are important.

reidmain 15y ago
You are right. I didn't mean to downplay these edge cases as much as I did. Is the concern that Facebook and Google's decisions are going to permeate so far it will become common place or that because these two social networks are the big dogs that it is unfair (for lack of a better word) for the edges cases to not be able to participate?
- timwiseman 15y ago
  I think some of both. Many sites that accept comments now encourage commenters to log in with their facebook accounts, so that can be a major factor. I hve not seen it yet, but I suspect something similar will happen as G+ leaves beta and becomes more established with it. Also, as I have read in other commenters, a social network is only valuable if your friends are on it, so while alternatives exist it may be hard to find the people you need to find on them.
  - reidmain 15y ago

jerf 15y ago

You don't seem to have made an actual argument there. You say: "the main argument against using real names always seems to boil down to someone waiting to share something radical and controversial but not having it tied to their physical persona." But you seem to just take it as a given that the idea that someone may want that, or that it may be a social good to protect that, is so bizarre and far out that an argument need not even be made, it's sufficient just to state it. Well, I disagree. People should be able to say controversial things without any fear, and I can give you two enormous use cases: Democracy, and childhood. Democracies need to be able to freely debate things that are, by definition, controversial, to function at all. Children need to be able to say stupid things without them being tagged by them for the next fifty years. I'm pretty confident you haven't got an argument more powerful than those... and "reidmain gets annoyed when he sees things (s)he thinks are stupid on the Internet" certainly isn't it.

reidmain 15y ago
If it sounded like I was saying that anything someone wants to share anonymously is not worth being shared then I apologize. I see the need to be able to say something controversial and not fear reprisal. My main argument was that services like Facebook and Google+ are not geared towards that. It is a personal opinion but it is just how I see these sites being used. Things like EA Spouse definitely need to have the ability to exist on the internet. I just don't think that this woman would need to be able to share it on her Google+ account.

ristretto 15y ago

1) Would you use it equally deliberately if your name was something like "Mustafa Al Zawahiri" in 2002? 2) Do you have any documented cases where using your real name had any advantage over using "reidmain"? 3) Social networks are not really a choice, trend-setters usually herd everyone else. 4) What's your name?

reidmain 15y ago
1) That is a good question. I would like to think I would because I would want to prove to those who stereotype that I am not an exception but like any of those difficult scenarios I will not presume my ideals would hold. 2) The only other pseudonym I've ever used is my gamer handle of Warmain. I would say that whenever I made a friend on a video game and we got close enough that we thought to exchange real names it forged a closer bond because it seemed to humanize you a bit more. But then again in video games there are names like xxxDragonSlayerzz. I think the pseudonyms people are complaining about using are not so dehumanizing. 4) My name is Reid. Pleasure to meet you.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ristretto 15y ago
  You're cheating; you didn't give me your full name. That's because it doesn't matter in communities outside your close group of friends. And the more i know about you, the more i 'm bound to apply my racist stereotypes to you. What if I am a persian who supports Ahmad18stan? I think there are better ways to have spirited discussions than saying "real names solve everything"; They don't, we should be able to do better with an efficient text filter. The internet is revolutionary because it is flat. Personal name weight, honorary knighthoods, twitter followers or criminal past should not weigh on someone's opinion.

pnathan 15y ago

No, I really only want my real name tied to professional activities and a few other areas where name /matters/. Honest. Everything else, I am content to slip away from the Big Search Spotlight in the sky.

reidmain 15y ago
I understand not wanting to use your real name everywhere. Do you not want to use services like Facebook or Google+ or you would use them if they allowed pseudonyms?
- pnathan 15y ago
  I refuse to use Facebook, because they have pursued a strategy of sharing data; multiple statements by high-level FB execs suggest that privacy is not a corporate value. Although I've had to set up a sock puppet to be able to see certain pages. :-( I see Google as being a company that values privacy, but inherently knows a good deal more than I am comfortable with. I have accounts on LinkedIn, G+, and StackOverflow that are strictly "professional persona", for the purpose of networking only.