
Would Anonymity Help Activists On Facebook? Maybe Not - bjonathan
http://www.rferl.org/content/would_anonymity_help_activists_on_facebook_maybe_not/2317476.html
======
jdp23
I agree that everybody (not just activists) should be allowed pseudonymity on
Facebook. But his argument that "it could lull many into a false sense of
security, encourage complacency, and actually put people at more risk" is just
silly. Activists are using Facebook today; giving them more rights can only
help them.

------
notahacker
Surely the common sense solution is to keep the no-pseudonyms policy but use
some discretion and not ban peaceful pro-democracy protestors whose passive
protest group was favourably received by the world's media.

~~~
jdp23
It seems to me the common sense solution is to remove the no-pseudonyms
policy, which in addition to activists also impacts domestic violence
survivors, authors, performers, transvestites, whistleblowers, and many
others.

~~~
notahacker
Doing that also legitimises fake celebrities, sockpuppets and dedicated
stalking accounts. It's pretty fundamental to Facebook's value proposition
that the identities (usually) represent a graph of real people and their
social relationships and interests (more or less the opposite of the sometimes
intentional anarchy of popular internet fora)

I don't think authors and performers who are offered the more appropriate
option of Facebook fan pages or domestic violence survivors who connect under
a single assumed name have too much to worry about from Facebook policies
applied reasonably.

~~~
r00fus
So this means there is a business opportunity for another social networking
site that can both offer pseudonyms as well as deal with the problems you
mention (which btw, are not exactly solved by Facebook's policy, though they
are discouraged).

I agree Facebook is unlikely to ever rescind their "real name" policy.

