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What is the benefit of a real name policy in the first place? Isn't it still fairly easy to create fake accounts using generic names?

• Crito 12y ago
  They are less concerned with fake accounts with fake names than they are with real accounts with fake names. Real accounts with fake names are potentially good data that they can sell, but with reduced quality because of the fake name. The "real name" policy is entirely about raising the perceived value of their dataset.
  • sukilot 12y ago
    But you can live on Facebook as (fake name) John Crito and connect to all for friends and FB will let you. But Laughing Critter will get shut down.
    • Crito 12y ago
      If facebook becomes aware that John Crito is not my real name, they would ban me or make me change it. They would only "tolerate" that fake name for as long as they did not know it was fake. They ban names like Laughing Critter, despite being real names, because they incorrectly believe that they are fake names. They're not working with perfect information here. Their strategies have false positive and false negative rates, which they seemingly consider acceptable (hence the outrage. If you can make facebook reevaluate the cost of a false positive (by associating those false positives with outrage), then you may be able to influence facebooks behavior).