5 ms·

My 90s-era policy of never connecting my real life and online personas is still serving me well.

• Ekaros 4y ago
  I still don't get how we ended up from there to so many people linking their real life name, location, sex and even workplace to anything they post publicly... Like we used to warn children to not disclose their name, or location or anything. And then the same parents happily started to broadcast that stuff...
  • baryphonic 4y ago
    A/S/L?
  • tenebrisalietum 4y ago
    Facebook was when that started to gain traction, but I think Myspace was the beginning. You had a strong incentive to put your real name and location because you would find people you knew around you automatically.
  • Kamq 4y ago
    > I still don't get how we ended up from there to so many people linking their real life name, location, sex and even workplace to anything they post publicly It's in the interest of the large internet companies to encourage this culture shift. It makes it easier to target advertising.
  • incone123 4y ago
    I knew UK activists who operated on the assumption their landlines were monitored in the 90s go ahead and do activist stuff under their real names on Facebook in the 2000s.
  • chernofool 4y ago
    It's strange, isn't it? In the span of a year or two, the zeitgeist shifted from "online stranger danger" to "you don't exist if you're not active on [website]". Even stranger, few people seem willing to re-evaluate their place in mass-scale social sites, even after 20 years of spam, scams and shams. Maybe it's a tragedy of the commons. People might enjoy the effortless positive reinforcement provided by their worldwide in-groups, which makes it easy to ignore the huge negative externalities? Or could people be addicted to the feeling of righteously fighting a great evil, such as their [adjective-of-the-month] neighbors?