Enforcing real names has pros and cons. For Facebook as a business, the pros certainly outweigh the value lost when accounts can't be mapped directly to real people. Names are a key part of that mapping.
In general, I prefer an option for pseudonymity, because it is much more inclusive (allowing certain people at the fringes to feel more comfortable joining in -- victims of abuse, political dissidents, etc), and is much less messy than total anonymity (which wouldn't really work for something like Facebook, not that there isn't a place for it elsewhere on the web). That said, pseudonymity can still get messy, so I see why Facebook might want to keep it in check.
One can also make the argument that the level of discourse is much higher on services where people are more personally accountable for what they say, and where confusing or offensive usernames don't get in the way of conversations. But I would say that the actual level of discourse sometimes found on Facebook throws that argument into question.
One can also make the argument that the level of discourse is much higher on services where people are more personally accountable for what they say, and where confusing or offensive usernames don't get in the way of conversations.
Based on the level of discourse here on hacker news and even on reddit, I don't think one can reasonably say that.
Indeed, it seems much more sensible to directly do Q/A on messages, instead of on the names being used. I think the argument simply confuses a correlation with causation.
What Facebook and Google+ gain in politesse, they lose in depth and honesty. I can't assume I'll be held "accountable" in a just way by every prospective employer, apartment manager, or lover I'll ever meet, so these venues get empty pleasantries from me, certainly nothing controversial in any way.
Now imagine a whole generation socializing under these artificial restrictions. Can you imagine how stifling being raised under an umbrella of constant surveillance by your peer group, family, future employers and advertisers would be to your personality and relationships? We're developing a society of sociopatic egotists.
Would that it were. The owner/admin's made some bad decisions that opened it up to being restricted/gamed and as a result the site is suffering as a platform for free and independent speech.
Sic transit gloria mundi, I guess. Some people cite backroom lobbying by people from places with authoritarian factions, e.g. Reddit and SA, but I don't have the resources to verify the rumors.
That assumes that people don't ignore the constant surveillance and largely do whatever they were going to do anyway. Most non-geeks seem to do just that.
(Whether that is a good idea is another matter. Also, I still don't like Facebook.)
For anyone interested, there's a visual novel that explores this idea.
"Don't Take it Perosnally Babe, it Just Ain't Your Story."
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The driving motivation for the story is that this generation _raised_ on "4chan" and "Facebook" shares deep and intimate things with each other _knowing full well_ that what they're sharing may be under review.
Towards the end it implies that privacy is an antiquated concept; and yet that changes surprisingly little.
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I'm with you; whether it is a good idea or not, I can't say. I'll just wait until it manifests in culture.
That being said: I don't like the implications of getting rid of privacy. Not when society likes to latch on to the most unimportant of biases when making incredibly important decisions. (For e.g: getting turned down for a job offer because of some political, philosophical, or religious rant on your Facebook wall.)
If you're going to hold such things over my head; then I'd rather not share them with you. -- And that (to me) is the essence of privacy.
It's why I like Google+ and Diaspora so much. I think the concept of "Circles" or "Aspects" gives the user a lot of flexibility when it comes to managing their own personal idea of privacy.
But if you do, be aware that occasionally they get reset to the defaults, just for shits'n'giggles. As happened to my partner this morning. Facebook simply cannot be trusted with anything of consequence - it's up to you to decide what that is, and whether it matters that you're telling everyone you know, plus all their friends, plus having that information sold to any company that wants it badly enough.
That would possibly be true if people had no other way to socialize. Just because Facebook exists doesn't mean that older ways of communicating have all died; the real world is still real, and you can talk in it.
People may have other ways to socialize, but there are plenty of social groups where Facebook has become the way that a lot of social activity is coordinated, and where standing outside means you simply won't find out about a lot of thing in time.
We are basically under constant surveillance by our peer group and family, just not in an Orwellian sense.
It's incredibly common for people to grow up afraid to say many things, having massive restrictions on some parts of their personalities due to those kinds of pressures.
We see it most obviously with the single big things such as "I can't tell my religious family I'm an atheist" or "I got ostracised for dating someone from another culture" or whatever, but it's almost certainly going on for a huge range of smaller personality facets - or ones which were blanked out before they developed.
Who would you be if you'd never had any restrictions on what you could say other than moral ones? If any interest you had, you would have been supported in following up, any comment you made would have been taken seriously and never laughed at, any attempt to better yourself was encouraged not mocked.
Maybe more and more surveillance such as you imagine will actually make it more obvious that others opinions are their largely their own problem and don't affect you all that much, and you should develop more confidence sooner.
I was trying to say that maybe total surveillance would feel less bad than occasional surveillance, since you would be forced to "get used to it" from an early age, and for things where there are no particular consequences other than embarassment, maybe that would be an improvement.
(Yet, that only applies if you assume the oversight is only for spotting criminals and the guides for criminal activity exactly agree with your own, and the system is fair).
Personally as I said before I do not advocate real name policies, but I am for fixing such problems if possible. For example, the illusion that people are perfect is obsolete in this day and age.
>so these venues get empty pleasantries from me, certainly nothing controversial in any way.
Is nobody familiar with the privacy settings? Facebook has lists, G+ has circles. One for family, one for acquaintances, one for close friends, one for business. Guess who gets to see the pictures from the house party and who doesn't?
I'm not, and neither are you unless you work there. They routinely add new settings with recklessly chosen defaults; there's no way to be confident about may be publicized while we aren't looking.
Facebook had lists. I was happily using them. Then Facebook added more lists with default names, with no way to delete them. Now I'm never 100% confident I've got everyone in the correct list. Who knows what will happen the next time they update?
Facebook pushes the their new lists, while ignoring the old ones. I'm constantly suggested to add people to the new lists, but not to the old ones. I started doing this, not realising the lists were different, as my old lists have the same names as the new ones. The only way to distinguish between them is the new icon. Facebook's list management tools don't make this easy to fix up.
So is facebook meant to be a service for your close friends and family or a broader social network that promotes businesses, news, celebrities; a wider discussion? If it wants to be both, there are only cons. You can't conflate personal relationships with media discussions and advertising. This is why facebook is ultimately a doomed prospect (either socially and/or financially). It's either successful as a true social network, or it's an ad/personal information scam.
Real names policies are questionable but debatable. Asking friends to report friends to some authority reveals utter contempt for the very personal relationships that Facebook supposedly thrives on.
Absolutely. I think that everyone who receives one of these questionnaires should select "I don't want to answer". If the majority answer that it becomes meaningless.
In general, I prefer an option for pseudonymity, because it is much more inclusive (allowing certain people at the fringes to feel more comfortable joining in -- victims of abuse, political dissidents, etc), and is much less messy than total anonymity (which wouldn't really work for something like Facebook, not that there isn't a place for it elsewhere on the web). That said, pseudonymity can still get messy, so I see why Facebook might want to keep it in check.
One can also make the argument that the level of discourse is much higher on services where people are more personally accountable for what they say, and where confusing or offensive usernames don't get in the way of conversations. But I would say that the actual level of discourse sometimes found on Facebook throws that argument into question.
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