You do not have to look far as to why one might want to remain anonymous. I submit The Federalist Papers[0] as exhibit A. If the Founding Fathers deemed it necessary to publish under a pseudonym then who are the likes of Facebook and Google to say otherwise? Yes, you may say that FB and Google are private entities and as such we must play by their rules. But I would retort that FB and Google are the default market places of the day for connecting with people and spreading ones ideas. I submit they have an obligation to maintain anonymity for those that choose to remain anonymous. The Federalist Papers were not self published. They were published by The Independent Journal[1], a journal of the day. That journal saw fit to publish those works anonymously under a pseudonym.
Anonymous publication must remain a viable avenue in the digital future if we are to maintain our character as a free nation. There can be no two ways about it.
>But I would retort that FB and Google are the default market places for connecting with people and spreading ones ideas.
"Default marketplace" != only marketplace. Was The Independent Journal, which published the Federalist Papers, the largest publication around at the time? Did it matter, as long as the Federalist Papers got published somewhere?
It's often not said enough, but the goal of Facebook during its history has always been to connect <i>real</i> people -- places like Twitter offer the opportunity to create humorous pseudonyms and fake identities, but Facebook (and Google+ for that matter) are about connecting people and fleshing out those connections.
A point that's overlooked: MySpace allowed pseudonyms to run free and wild, but that's what made the connections on the site all-the-more shallow.
The vast majority of those cases apply to topic-oriented internet forums. Real-name policies are obviously not a good idea there.
In what situation would it be advantageous to be pseudonymous on a social network that's for talking to people you actually know in the real world like Google+ or Facebook? I know people in the real world who use pseudonyms on Facebook in lieu of privacy settings, and all it does is lower the quality of everyone else's interaction with Facebook by causing confusion, and give those people a false sense of security that their unsecured profiles will never be associated with them.
If something lists 100 arguments against a policy, it is a rhetorical fallacy to say that 99 of them don't apply and therefore the entire list is not appropriate. Even if only one argument is relevant, it's still an argument against the policy. Some of the reasons listed at that link include examples of why it "would it be advantageous to be pseudonymous on a social network that's for talking to people you actually know in the real world."
Here's one: "Survivors of domestic abuse (most often women and children) who need to not be found by their abusers."
If someone leaves an abusive relationship, moves to another state, severs all old ties, and perhaps even decides to use a new nickname, then why should that person be required to use a real name and therefore be easier to find? Especially if the new ties know the person better by the pseudonym than the original name? I'm not saying that that person can't be found, only that it shouldn't necessarily be easy to be found.
In any case, Facebook is more widely used than you summarized. It also has topic-oriented internet forums. I've used it to talk with people that I don't actually know in the real world. And some topic-oriented internet forums use Facebook as a commenting system.
By your logic, Facebook should therefore not have a real-name policy, no? At least, obviously not for those people who primarily use it for forum participation.
Someone who is hiding from an abusive ex would be best served by stringent privacy settings that make them invisible in search, etc. Unless they plan to delete and recreate their online presence every time someone accidentally reveals the connection.
I'm not saying you should be required to use your birth name, but Facebook/Google+ accounts ought to be the same as what you use in the real world. Anything else detracts from the quality of everyone else's UX. If that's not your legal name, then fine. It's still you real name, not a handle like superuser2 or dalke.
A good solution would be for Facebook to support pseudonyms for web comments and forum functionality, but display real names to your friends. Real names also make sense on Google+, but I don't support Google's actions wrt YouTube.
It's possible to be invisible in Facebook search? I had no idea. Do you think most do?
I emphasized the difference between "cannot be found" and "don't make it easy to be found." This is different than the extremist "delete and recreate their online presence every time someone accidentally reveals the connection." There's a difference between being found a year later vs being found two days later.
"Facebook/Google+ accounts ought to be the same as what you use in the real world."
Okay, then what's involved if one changes one's real world name?
One of the other points in that long list of objections to a real name policy concerns "those whose religious conversion involved taking a new name who have not legally changed their name."
If I become a Sikh and take on the real world name of Kaur Dalke Singh, how do I change my Facebook name? Do I have to get a legal name change first? Otherwise, Google+ allow accepts "proof of an established identity online with a significant following" (which assumes I have a significant following elsewhere) or "References to an established identity offline in print media, news articles, etc." (so, what, I announce something in the local paper?).
Why "ought" the modern versions of Yusuf Islam and Muhammad Ali wait for the law to acknowledge their name changes before making the change on Facebook? Why "ought" Malcom X wait upon the law before he can reject his slave name of "Little"? Would Google+ allow people to change their names for these situations? What if the local government bans me from using my new name as my official name?
Consider Blaer Bjarkardottir, a teenager in Iceland. Her given name was not allowed by the Icelandic Personal Names Register, so she has no legal name. She is referred to as 'Stulka' - 'girl' in legal documents. Ought she wait until the Icelandic government either allows her her name, or forces her to accept a new name, before she's allowed to use Facebook/Google+?
You said (of using a pseudonym) that "all it does is lower the quality of everyone else's interaction with Facebook by causing confusion, and give those people a false sense of security that their unsecured profiles will never be associated with them." Malcom X's reason for choosing a new name had nothing to do with the reason you assume is why people want to use a pseudonym. Malcom X was well known. If I had the same epiphany, and decide to no longer use my operating system name of 'dalke' but instead go by X ... would Google+ accept it? Or reject it because I'm not famous enough?
Look, you're right. Anonymity and even pseudonymity is part of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. But to say that no one is harmed by requiring a real name policy is to be oblivious to the real-world issues concerning what a "real name" actually is.
Wouldn't the people who perform much of this harassment also fall under this "Real Names" policy? While I'm not saying that the issues would be completely eliminated, could this perhaps be progress towards reducing such cases?
No one wins in a "Real Names" policy; those who follow it are vulnerable and those who don't care about their reputation or the consequences of their words will be jerks and then find ways to spoof their identities after such a ban.
And it isn't just blog comments; it's everything. If people here were using their real names and weren't allowed to create sockpuppets for one-off posts, we wouldn't see nearly the honesty and humiliation we do. People being fearful of their reputation just leads to less communication, particularly on topics that are controversial but need to be talked about. You don't need to look far to see how successful communities that embrace pseudonyms are. The argument that it leads to just as many trash posts might be true (although I see just as many idiots using their Facebook accounts to post bile on news sites); but that's why voting exists. Shame the comment, not the commenter.
> And it isn't just blog comments; it's everything. If people here were using their real names and weren't allowed to create sockpuppets for one-off posts, we wouldn't see nearly the honesty and humiliation we do.
But this isn't about making the Internet as a whole non-anonymous. I realize that Google is a rather large entity, but I put a lot more trust and faith in them than other big internet players.
> don't need to look far to see how successful communities that embrace pseudonyms are.
I don't find a community where some people can say immensely hateful things as all that great. Sure, they can regulate and ban the user, but there is absolutely no responsibility taken for the aggravator's actions.
In my opinion, I'd rather there be several levels of anonymity available. Competition will drive each platform and with any luck, some semblance of a standard practice may come out of it.
I personally want people to be responsible for their actions on the Internet, until it has been completely proven it won't help, I don't see a reason to do away with a "Real Names" policy.
>> "I don't find a community where some people can say immensely hateful things as all that great. Sure, they can regulate and ban the user, but there is absolutely no responsibility taken for the aggravator's actions."
But what action would be taken if you actually knew who they were in real life? You mentioned "hateful" comments, but assuming that isn't actual threats to someone, there is no accountability beyond banning the user, pseudonym or not.
This of course also assumes people aren't faking out the "real name" restriction to begin with...
> This of course also assumes people aren't faking out the "real name" restriction to begin with...
I'm not talking about a service that half-asses the feature. I'm talking about a legitimate link between my online persona and my actual real name. G+ doesn't nearly meet my demands for this service, but at least they're trying it and hopefully making progress on legitimacy.
There's not much social cost to harassing someone within the limits of the law. Or even just outside the limits, since police rarely are willing/able to do much about online misdemeanors.
Well, you can ban the person - and I would believe that some people's vitriol would substantially decrease if they had their names tagged on a particularly hateful statement. And if these Real Names were consistently kept accurate, wouldn't it be easier to sift through and ban offenders?
Yes, but this only affects people's online activities. It additionally forces otherwise innocent people to open themselves up to offline, real-life harassment.
Who says a "Real Names" policy any significant impact on a harasser? It certainly wouldn't impact an offline harasser (except by making it easier to find their targets offline, of course).
And how many of the serious online harassers would really be deterred by it? I suspect that many or even most of the people who would be deterred by a "Real Names" policy aren't the ones doing the harassment in the first place. Plenty of people are willing to attach their names to offline harassment (e.g. Westboro Baptist Church) and I don't see why online harassment would be any different.
> Who says a "Real Names" policy any significant impact on a harasser?
Because if this service was worth any merit, the real name attached to the hateful speech will have the same reputation-destroying effect as it being printed in any literary source. I completely understand that this won't deter everyone, but it will deter most people.
I have very high demands for this type of service, folks assume that people using the platform will just fake the 'Real Names' policy. Well, I don't want some hokey system in place, when I talk about linking a Real Name to someone's content, I'm linking a real person to their content. How will this connection be establish, maintained and not abused? I don't know, but I do know if it worked in the appropriate manner, there wouldn't be so many functional holes as people keep saying.
G+ in its current form does not appease my demand for a service that utilizes a real "Real Names" policy - they half-ass it and frankly retard the prospect of someone trying to do it legitimately and true to form.
> "Using real names is useful," Cerf said. "But I don't think it should be forced on people, and I don't think we do."
I guess he hasn't seen YouTube's argumentative 'give us your real name and link our accounts' wizard, then. While you can find a way to answer the questions to keep your handle, you may have to lie to do so.
What? Just say no when prompted by the dialog. It then says they are considering other options and asks you which you'd prefer. There is no lying involved.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying Youtube's dialog is a good thing. I'm just saying there is no lying involved and it's rather trivial (albeit annoying) to dismiss it without having to lie or use your real name.
It's a dialog that shows up every time I log into youtube, and requires (as of the last time I went through it) clicking about 5 different buttons to keep my real name off the service. I didn't have to lie, but it DEMANDED that I select a reason for not wanting my name on the service, and you can tell they're trying to get users to cave and just click "yes" once. It's shitty, argumentative, and unpleasant to use.
There are 2 buttons that I counted when I tried to manually link it (which looks like the same process as when it's automatically popped up for me before). I said I don't want to use my full name, and then tried both "Ask me later" and "I want to use 2 different names" and that was it.
I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea but can we tone down the hyperbole a bit? It's not constructive at all.
If it asks you more than once after selecting a reason for picking no, then its a bug. I hear your complaint a lot, but I've never seen it happen in person to anyone I know personally.
I just tested (logged out, logged back in) and did not get the real name prompt after selecting to keep my username back when the change was first announced. That seems to confirm it's not something everyone encounters.
It doesn't happen every time, but I see it multiple times a day. You shouldn't assume that just because one login attempt didn't get the dialog that it's not appearing.
Google recently changed YouTube so you get the prompt multiple times a day asking you to opt into having your real name displayed on your account. I've heard from probably a dozen people with the same issue.
Furthermore, they removed the 'No'/'Cancel' options from the modal dialog; the only way to dismiss it is to go all the way through it and try and figure out which of the confusingly worded options is the one to make it go away.
For new signups, youtube doesn't even offer the option of using a handle. A few years down the road, the comment sections will be dominated by real names (or "real names" at least).
Even if your real name is not displayed on Youtube, Google still links your Youtube handle to all the other information it has about you, so it's sort of a moot point - anyone who wants to can find out that "deathmaster1701" is really Reginald Brown of 132 North Hanover Street.
G+ official tagline is "Google+ makes connecting on the web more like connecting in the real world."
Google has not required Real (legal) Names for quite a while now. Google requires your "Common Name", which is the name you use with your friends, family, or coworkers. And there is an undocumented policy that the name has to look "middle-class", have 1-3 spaces in it, and not look too artsy.
If your friends call you Mini Kites, Google+ won't shut you down. And if Google+ challenges you on a name violation, you can "clear your name" with purely online-evidence, if you like.
> And if Google+ challenges you on a name violation, you can "clear your name" with purely online-evidence, if you like.
Their help page states that you may appeal with "Proof of an established identity online with a significant following"
That's more of a celebrity clause than an actual solution for real users. Yes, if you're Lady Gaga or 50 Cent, or if you're just an internet personality with enough followers to raise a stink about being blocked, then you'll get your pseudonymous account. The rest of us will be named what Google tells us to be named, or stay out.
Without testing, I'm not sure, but I think Mini Kites is actually likely to be a flagged name. The last vestiges of the "real names" policy are really just to keep businesses from getting Google+ profiles (Google wants businesses to keep Google+ pages instead). So there's an ML algorithm that determines how name-y or business-y a given name is, and flags names that it thinks belong to companies rather than people. I suspect Mini Kites (and almost certainly MiniKites or Mini-Kites) would trigger the review process.
The major unexamined assumption here for me is that identity is unitary. In fact I have different names for different groups and I don't want them linked together.
And that doesn't mean by everyone except Google. I don't want Google to consider me a single identity across its different accounts, either.
> "I don't want Google to consider me a single identity across its different accounts, either."
Good luck with that.
I've had Google prompt me to associate separate accounts across different domains (each driven by google apps). And I've had Google prompt me to merge what it determined were 'duplicate' email addresses into one contact for several of my friends/family -- it connected work accounts, pseudonymous webmail accounts, personal domain accounts, etc.
You may not want to make the connection official, and I understand and respect that. But Google already has the data to know with some confidence. And that's not just a hypothetical capability; they're demonstrably doing it.
Even after they allegedly changed it to allow "well-known" pseudonyms, the Google+ naming policy just seems arbitrary and pointless to me. Real names that look fake get blocked, while fake names that look real stay. People who want to follow the TOS will stay away, while people who do not care will sign up.
I'd consider using a nickname a "web best practice". It takes minimal effort, is unlikely to confuse anyone you actually know, and lets you compartmentalize your interactions better than any "circle". I am disappointed that Google is trying to discourage it.
The whole 'we changed our policy, you can now add a pseudonym field to your profile' was total bullshit in my experience. I tried adding 'mullingitover' as a pseudonym and got shot down. WTF is the point of adding a pseudonym field and then being inscrutable and pedantic about what you'll allow there?
That was the day I stopped going to G+, and the day Google lost a boatload of my goodwill.
Does Google actually ask for validation of user names? I prefer real names for aesthetic reasons, but if someone chooses to make up a false name, i wouldn't bother.
They worry because they want G+ etc to be your real identity much like facebook. I had a nickname in Facebook, they found out and they put my name and I can't change it back. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, there are some very valid arguments for allowing fictional names (privacy, security, etc).
They mainly not want to go back to the day were everything was mydodoname123.
I'm still not entirely clear on what Google's policy is on real names, even after reading it.
Is it acceptable to have an account with a fictitious name in addition to one's own account? It's not clear to me from their policy whether this is allowed or not. I had assumed not, but I know of at least one G+ "Suggested User" who maintains an account under a different name.
> ... there are cases where in the transactions both parties really need to know who are we talking to.
This coming from a search company? What else do they have. A free email. You need two parties verifying each other via free email? What else. Ads. There's only a single party in Ads.
You are starting from the premise that Google is a search company. They are not. They are an advertising company.
The advertising company needs to know your real name as it is more attractive to clients to know they are dealing with a real person viewing their advertisements rather than a legend. The advertising company can charge more money and target advertisements better.
You are also working from the premise that you are one of the parties in the transaction. You are not. You are the product being sold.
I think based on the content of the linked article, it appears that he's talking about non-advertising situation, i.e credit card transactions or otherwise. From that perspective, it does however makes sense that "both parties know each other". However, I agree with the rest of your comment.
Real names for standard web usage does not benefit anyone except Google. With it they can track you more effectively, which is the only reason they demand it. There is no value for the user. No matter what they say.
Note that Nuuton does feature a good naming policy: Nicknames are encouraged.
Anonymous publication must remain a viable avenue in the digital future if we are to maintain our character as a free nation. There can be no two ways about it.
[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent_Journal