Is there any reason to prefer anonymity to protected aliases? I'd say people should be able to post under their nicknames and only their lawyers/notaries/trustees should be able to disclose their identity in a some lawful procedure. It should not be a responsibility of a platform, but there must be someone who knows the true identity and can certify the relationship between it and the alias.
However, there are significant safety issues associated with requiring people to use their legal names for online discussions, and I think that it will seriously muzzle political dissent, social movements which don't currently enjoy mainstream support, gender and sexual minority group discussions, the creation of "safe spaces" (which, I realize, are something of an illusion, but still have value), and vigorous intellectual discourse.
I certainly wouldn't have been comfortable being as politically and socially outspoken as I am on G+ (a deliberately public-facing persona with a unique nym for that purpose), if I had been forced to use my full legal name for the purpose.
Given some of the hate and harassment that has been directed my way (and, honestly, I've gotten off light compared to many), I absolutely would not feel safe engaging in some of those discussions if my name, phone number, and location were easily accessible.
I know that it's difficult to completely compartmentalize between nyms and platform identities, but I think that the ability to choose which face is forward, appropriate to the social group that you're engaging with, is an important part of the human experience.
If you don't want your boss and your grandmother reading your opinions on politics, social issues, sexuality, etc., then a pseudonym is the obvious answer -- and I've seen any number of sites (LiveJournal is a particular favorite) implement granular controls on privacy, in order to establish nym identity and reputation, while still allowing users to speak to their chosen audience.
Can you ever be truly private? Probably not. But it's important to be able to have some form of shield from the casual observer, to have a name and identity that you choose, rather than having one chosen for you, which may reveal far more than you intended.
Yes, I post publicly on G+, and sacrifice some level of privacy in doing so -- I do it because I enjoy the level of discourse on that site, and talking with interesting strangers is part of the fun. On the other hand, I deliberately didn't link that profile with any of my other online identities . . . and, while I may not have done a perfect job of it, I at least did my best to create walls between those personae.
As Dredmorbius said, it's important that users be able to maintain those walls if they choose, without a service provider choosing to collapse them and merge those identities without permission. By using their services, I did not consent to that action (in fact, repeatedly refused their attempts to do so), and if given a choice between leaving the Google-services hive and having my legal identity attached to everything I've ever written, I'd leave.
What is deceptive and duplicitous about this latest G+/YouTube action, is that many users who expressly refused the "offer" to merge accounts were merged without permission, and often those merges revealed personal information that the users had not chosen to share with YouTube.
I find that intensely disturbing, and I am seriously hoping that some type of action is taken against Google, as with Buzz, regarding the breach of private user information.
I think it should be a rule in the internet that users should have a right to use whichever pseudonym they wish. Anonymity would be great too, but obviously it does not work in certain cases.
I for one won't use Facebook or any other social media as long as I can't use a fake name. At times it feels a shame, really.
You don't have to share your actual last name. Pseudonyms are fine. I didn't think about the case where someone doesn't have a last name. I might need to do something about that.
I've always adapted a policy of using my real name as a moniker on social sites.
It prevents me from writing harsh things. I figure that anonymity is temporary, that real identities can always be determined if someone digs hard enough. I don't want something I say in the heat of the moment to come back to haunt me years later.
It's not for everybody. I've probably made some secret enemies that know my name. But for me, it seems to be the best way.
For you pseudonymity is good, but would it not be better for other users to see a real human thoughts instead of comments of some anonymous nickname? For example, I prefer to speak to real human.
A lot of assumption in this thread that the only reason to be pseudonymous is for criminality. That's not the case.
I've raised a decent bit from a well-known pseudonymous twitter account. If it's a smart contract-based investment, the blockchain secures their investment, not law, so don't need their "real" name for that.
Short of needing the name for legal reasons, why do I care what their birth name is? I know they have a certain audience in my target customer base, I know they are knowledgable about my space because I hear them talk all the time in twitter spaces.
If they want to remain pseudonymous, let them! In a world where gaining a large online presence essentially rolls the dice on whether you get cancelled for something in the future, are we really surprised people want to reclaim a bit of anonymity on the internet while still being able to build a reputation they can build on?
On the other hand, I use my real full name here and most everywhere else. I agree that explicitly rejecting anonymity is a solution, but strongly disagree that it would work for everyone or should be forced on anyone.
Already on the internet we can choose to use our real name when we are comfortable having our reputation tied to our words giving them more weight, and we can also be anonymous other times when we are okay with our words holding very little weight, but also very little risk to us.
I think many people, if they find a comment really impactful, will take a look and see if this was said by someone using their real name and if there are obviously relevant major corporate biases they didn't disclose. Or maybe I am weird and am just trying to justify that I personally do this often.
Regardless, both anonymous and identified communication are very valuable depending on the particular goal, and it should always be a switch everyone is empowered to be able flip at any time.
Sometimes when I am testing out ideas to decide how I even feel about something myself, I may choose to be anonymous.
Most of the time, I am fine with most of my posts on HN being under my real name and tied to my reputation and that of the security and privacy consulting company I run.
I still reserve the right to change my mind and be wrong sometimes and trust most of my target customers to give me some room for that :)
I think it's time for the government to give you as many names as you want to give out to companies, and there's no reason for anyone who isn't suing you for it to know which of your aliases go together. Also aliases should be shared, to further conflate things. (nothing should stop my friends and i from sharing an alias and persona - companies should be legally forced to bend over backwards and enable this, for everyone. For example Google should be legally forced to allow you to create a new gmail inbox with a new name in a single click and not have it tied on any way to the old name.) Also credit card companies should be forced to give you as many cards in whatever names that you ask for. Nobody who isn't suing you should have a right to know your true name. They shouldn't even have it on record. If they wanna know something about you, they should ask you.
It works for writers, celebrities, etc - why not the rest of us.
EDIT to clarify: this is a serious comment, you can read it literally.
I disagree. I'd prefer to keep my identify secret everywhere I post. I work very hard to make it impossible to trace my posts. I mean, it would be easy for people to find things I said long ago (or not so long ago) I now regret.
No. I have no desire for people to know my real name or real identity.
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.
Real name policies greatly benefit the community as a whole. Of course we all see that there is a rare need for anonymity, but it should be far from the default. I wish the net could be divided into two halves -- "Willing to put my name behind what I write", and "Anonymous Cesspool".
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