<story><title>Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/global-coalition-facebook-authentic-names-are-authentically-dangerous-your-users</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TeMPOraL</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In real life its fairly easy (and I would say healthy) to have multiple &amp;quot;identities&amp;quot;, say your workday exquisitely professional identity and weekend identity which enjoys goofy antics with friends.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think Facebook primarily targets the second one. Though personally, I find the whole concept of this type of multiple identities weird. Why should I present a different identity at work than I do in personal affairs?&lt;p&gt;And if your boss objects to your weekend parties, then (unless we&amp;#x27;re talking PR-heavy industry, you being in the spotlight) you should consider changing jobs. Caring about such issues is as sign of serious problems in the company.</text></item><item><author>dunkelheit</author><text>Real-name internet identities have some drawbacks compared to their real-world counterparts:&lt;p&gt;1. In real life its fairly easy (and I would say healthy) to have multiple &amp;quot;identities&amp;quot;, say your workday exquisitely professional identity and weekend identity which enjoys goofy antics with friends. In infinitely googlable internet - not so much. I guess mitigating this is the idea behind google+ circles but I have never used them so can&amp;#x27;t say much.&lt;p&gt;2. In real life past events tend to diminish in significance after some time passes. So someone who had committed a misstep can atone himself over time. Not so on the internet - what happened on the internet stays on the internet ... like forever and also infinitely googlable. This is less relevant to the walled garden of facebook but relevant to the internet at large.&lt;p&gt;Considering the difficulties with friend requests - you are usually connected to the people you want to befriend through other means (e.g. in real life). So use that channel to communicate your pseudonym! I guess real-name policy had sense when facebook was being discovered by former classmates who wanted to be in touch over the internet for the first time but these days are long gone.</text></item><item><author>morgante</author><text>I wish the EFF and others who are against using real names would at least acknowledge the drawbacks of pseudonyms and the proliferation of fake accounts and fake names which comes with them.&lt;p&gt;The real name policy has huge benefits. I&amp;#x27;m not constantly bombarded by fake friend requests like I am on Twitter, Skype, or any other platform which allows random usernames. Even more importantly, I can easily find the people in my life without having to go through an awkward song and dance. If I&amp;#x27;m working on a project with someone, I can immediately find them and message them without worrying that it&amp;#x27;s some random imposter or some such.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is a platform designed for digitizing your real world relationships, not for accumulating thousands of &amp;quot;followers.&amp;quot; There&amp;#x27;s a reason they limit you to 5,000 friends. People who are trying to disconnect their Facebook identity from their real world identity are not using Facebook the way it&amp;#x27;s meant to be used and should probably just leave it.&lt;p&gt;That being said, Facebook could definitely do a better job of making it easier for people to prove that a name is their everyday name even when it&amp;#x27;s not their legal name.&lt;p&gt;I fully expect to lose a lot of karma over this comment, but I&amp;#x27;d love to hear an &lt;i&gt;argument&lt;/i&gt; over why access to Facebook is a right together with your down vote.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CookieMon</author><text>&amp;gt; And if your boss objects to your weekend parties, then you should consider changing jobs. Caring about such issues is as sign of serious problems in the company.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t work like that. On PT I listened to an HR employee laughing to a friend about how great Facebook is for them. A story she told was of a recent job applicant, they looked up his facebook profile and found he&amp;#x27;d posted some weekend party photos. She laughed about how you could &amp;quot;tell from the eyes&amp;quot; he was on drugs... &amp;quot;needless to say, he didn&amp;#x27;t get the job&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;People in the real world are penalized when they don&amp;#x27;t keep work&amp;#x2F;play identities separate — especially beady-eyed people!&lt;p&gt;(Conversely, if my facebook profile ever fills up with cats and doctored photos of me climbing K2, or helping out at the local orphanage, you&amp;#x27;ll know I&amp;#x27;m applying for a job somewhere with an HR department)</text></comment>
<story><title>Global coalition to Facebook: “Authentic names” are dangerous for your users</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/global-coalition-facebook-authentic-names-are-authentically-dangerous-your-users</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TeMPOraL</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In real life its fairly easy (and I would say healthy) to have multiple &amp;quot;identities&amp;quot;, say your workday exquisitely professional identity and weekend identity which enjoys goofy antics with friends.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think Facebook primarily targets the second one. Though personally, I find the whole concept of this type of multiple identities weird. Why should I present a different identity at work than I do in personal affairs?&lt;p&gt;And if your boss objects to your weekend parties, then (unless we&amp;#x27;re talking PR-heavy industry, you being in the spotlight) you should consider changing jobs. Caring about such issues is as sign of serious problems in the company.</text></item><item><author>dunkelheit</author><text>Real-name internet identities have some drawbacks compared to their real-world counterparts:&lt;p&gt;1. In real life its fairly easy (and I would say healthy) to have multiple &amp;quot;identities&amp;quot;, say your workday exquisitely professional identity and weekend identity which enjoys goofy antics with friends. In infinitely googlable internet - not so much. I guess mitigating this is the idea behind google+ circles but I have never used them so can&amp;#x27;t say much.&lt;p&gt;2. In real life past events tend to diminish in significance after some time passes. So someone who had committed a misstep can atone himself over time. Not so on the internet - what happened on the internet stays on the internet ... like forever and also infinitely googlable. This is less relevant to the walled garden of facebook but relevant to the internet at large.&lt;p&gt;Considering the difficulties with friend requests - you are usually connected to the people you want to befriend through other means (e.g. in real life). So use that channel to communicate your pseudonym! I guess real-name policy had sense when facebook was being discovered by former classmates who wanted to be in touch over the internet for the first time but these days are long gone.</text></item><item><author>morgante</author><text>I wish the EFF and others who are against using real names would at least acknowledge the drawbacks of pseudonyms and the proliferation of fake accounts and fake names which comes with them.&lt;p&gt;The real name policy has huge benefits. I&amp;#x27;m not constantly bombarded by fake friend requests like I am on Twitter, Skype, or any other platform which allows random usernames. Even more importantly, I can easily find the people in my life without having to go through an awkward song and dance. If I&amp;#x27;m working on a project with someone, I can immediately find them and message them without worrying that it&amp;#x27;s some random imposter or some such.&lt;p&gt;Facebook is a platform designed for digitizing your real world relationships, not for accumulating thousands of &amp;quot;followers.&amp;quot; There&amp;#x27;s a reason they limit you to 5,000 friends. People who are trying to disconnect their Facebook identity from their real world identity are not using Facebook the way it&amp;#x27;s meant to be used and should probably just leave it.&lt;p&gt;That being said, Facebook could definitely do a better job of making it easier for people to prove that a name is their everyday name even when it&amp;#x27;s not their legal name.&lt;p&gt;I fully expect to lose a lot of karma over this comment, but I&amp;#x27;d love to hear an &lt;i&gt;argument&lt;/i&gt; over why access to Facebook is a right together with your down vote.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>taswal_tmanir</author><text>&amp;gt; Though personally, I find the whole concept of this type of multiple identities weird. Why should I present a different identity at work than I do in personal affairs?&lt;p&gt;Most people act more formally at work than they would otherwise.  It&amp;#x27;s the same idea.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And if your boss objects to your weekend parties, then (unless we&amp;#x27;re talking PR-heavy industry, you being in the spotlight) you should consider changing jobs. Caring about such issues is as sign of serious problems in the company.&lt;p&gt;If you have a secure job, or are important to the company, maybe.&lt;p&gt;Many younger people are not so secure in their jobs, however, or live in a highly religious area, or both.  A Facebook user still dependent on their strict parents could also be ruined by a stray pic.</text></comment>