
Surprisingly Good Evidence That Real Name Policies Fail To Improve Comments - iProject
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/
======
JumpCrisscross
For "surprisingly good evidence" the TechCrunch article blatantly ignores the
findings of the Carnegie Mellon study linked to [1].

TL;DR the study found "that the proportion of negative postings has decreased
on the pseudonym-based forum after the law; whereas, the law was not
influential on the website in which real names were being revealed regardless
of the law." It gives little insight into what happens when a site switches
from being pseudyonym-based to real named.

The Real Name Verification Law of 2007 required website owners verify the
identities of users but did "not force websites to reveal [their] real names".
Thus, it resulted in pseudonym-based forums that can now link to a real
identity if needed and sites which always used real names but can now verify
them.

On the pseudonym-based forum, after switching from unlinked pseudonyms, i.e.
anonymity, to linkable pseudonyms "the proportion of bad postings clearly
decreased...in both short-term and long-term compared to the control group,
and they are statistically significant". The switch was "not salient" on the
real name board that _always used real names_. Plus one TechCrunch.

The study readily states that the "proportions of bad postings [on the real
name forum] are smaller than those [on the pseudonym-based forum]" across the
board. This suggests a real name board _will_ contain less vulgarity.

If one is worried about switching from unlinked to linked pseudonyms, note
that the "composition of user groups did not change over the period regardless
of the law".

We should also qualify articulating these findings to the United States given
that "South Korea’s household broadband penetration reached 95%, which was the
highest rate among those of all 57 surveyed countries" and that their
political culture tends to be a mark more boisterous than we have here.

[1]
[http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/2012/4525/00/...](http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/2012/4525/00/4525d041-abs.html)

~~~
ChuckMcM
I too was surprised that they would link to a study which kinda skewers their
argument.

The point about how people eventually stop caring about cameras though is well
taken. I can certainly believe that people will eventually get accustomed to
the fact that their identity is out there and revert to their 'normal'
behavior.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Until we have evidence that belief is an article of faith. The study showed a
significant persistent effect six months after the law.

------
acabal
My site, Scribophile, requires that people sign up with a "pen name", which
has to sound _like_ a real name. You don't have to use your actual real name,
just something that sounds like it could be a real name.

The idea wasn't to prevent trolling or bad comments--I spent enough time
banning trolls and cleaning the forums every day to know that it wouldn't have
helped anyway--but to add an air of credibility and, dare I say it,
professionalism to the environment.

I've found that people interact more intimately when they're talking to "Bob
Smith" instead of "cyberwulf555". People can picture themselves talking to a
"Bob", but they can't picture a generic alphanumeric handle as well. It makes
people more confident in building lasting relationships. In that respect, the
policy has been a complete success.

~~~
nickzoic
Which is interesting, because Google/Facebook also seem to be requiring a "Pen
name", really ... until they start checking IDs for a serious proportion of
users, and not just the ones which seem odd to them.

~~~
nsmartt
It's a terms of service violation. Are you really arguing that it's acceptable
to enforce a real name policy because you can just lie about your name?

------
yaix
Real name means:

(a) lawyers will make more money suing people for ever bad word they write

(b) you will have problems all your life for some puberty-influenced shit you
wrote when 16

(c) that people who worry about their real-life reputation do not speak up
when they should.

This real name wave is the worst thing happening to web culture since aol was
invented.

~~~
flogic
Also it tends to shut up exactly the disadvantaged people we want to here
from. Personally, I use my real name, but I'm a white heterosexual male.
Change any of those and I might not feel so comfortable giving random
strangers the means to find me. My fiancee for instance avoids using her real
name like the plague of death.

~~~
mynameishere
I use a fake name specifically because I'm a white heterosexual male. You
don't seem to understand which views are verboten and punishable in this
modern age.

~~~
esperluette
I bet you get a _lot_ fewer rape & death threats than the average woman who
uses her real name on the internets. "Verboten and punishable", sheesh.

~~~
lobotryas
Clearly you've never spent any time playing on Xbox Live. :)

------
paulsutter
Most Koreans have the surnames Kim, Park, or Lee. I once tried searching for
the names of Korean friends on a Korean social network. Every name I tried had
a huge number of matches, and I was unable to find anyone by name.

Of course I do agree that moderation is important anywhere. Forcing users to
identify themselves may have an adverse selection bias. People with anything
to lose may comment much less, and the trolls may be proud of their
provocative opinions.

~~~
john_flintstone
I once tried searching for my friend John Smith on Facebook, and there he was,
right at the top. Good thing westerners have such distinctive names.

~~~
bokonist
In Korea ~50% of the population has one of the three most popular surnames
(Park, Lee or Kim). There are only about 250 surnames in use (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_name> ). In the U.S. a bit less than 3%
of the population has one of the three most popular surnames (Smith, Johnson
or Williams) and there are over ten thousand names in common use (
[http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/data/1990surnames/dist.a...](http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/data/1990surnames/dist.all.last)
). So yes, your sarcasm aside, American names are an order of magnitude more
distinctive.

~~~
kineticflow
>So yes, your sarcasm aside, American names are an order of magnitude more
distinctive.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that. Your data is only based on last names.
Yes, it is true that Korean last names are an order of magnitude less
distinctive than American ones. However, you failed to consider the entire
name. While American names are chosen from a handful of common first names
(e.g., John, Megan...), Korean first names are much more complex and less
likely to collide with others [1] - at least not as much as English names.

Additionally, the Korean law mandates that websites collect people's social
security number, not just "real names", so if I were to sue an online
commenter for defamation, the court just needs to pick up the phone, call the
site administrator, match the user account with SSN, and SSN with whatever the
government has. So distinctiveness of names don't really have any meaning in
this context. Also note that when you register for a website, you can't simply
enter a SSN that passes the parity test; in addition to that, the SSN you
entered goes through a service provided by the government that matches the
entered SSN and name with actual data from financial institutions.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_name>

------
djt
The irony is that Techcrunch started using Facebook Comments to decrease the
amount of trolls.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/techcrunch-facebook-
comment...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/techcrunch-facebook-comments/)

------
quacker
From a linked article: _According to a study by the KCC, malicious comments
accounted for 13.9 percent of all messages posted on Internet threads in 2007
but decreased only 0.9 percentage points in 2008, a year after the regulation
went into force._ [1]

And from a glance at the CMU paper: _Our findings suggest that the enhanced
identification process shows significant effects on reducing uninhibited
behaviors at the aggregate level, but there is no significant impact regarding
a particular user’s behavioral shift._ [2]

These actually indicate an improvement in general, and in fact the first
reason listed in for scrapping the real-name registration was that it
increased "cyber hacking" rather than the ineffectiveness of using real
names.[1] I haven't read through the paper, but I'm interested in the contexts
where changes occur. For example, if HN and reddit and YouTube all switched to
real-name logins, which site would have the most improvement? Are sites that
discuss primarily controversial topics more likely to resist improvements in
comment quality after a switch to real-name login? (These are rhetorical.)

1:
[http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/12/30/2011...](http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/12/30/2011123001526.html)

2:
[http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/2012/4525/00/...](http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/hicss/2012/4525/00/4525d041-abs.html)

------
lysium
I never thought that real name are required to reduce the amount of trolling,
but to ease tracking of individual users. Of course, the latter cannot be
stated publicly, so the first is given as a reason.

~~~
antidoh
Yes, exactly. It's not about comments, or civility, of fine dining. It's about
selling real people behind real names to real advertisers because real money
is at stake.

------
milesskorpen
They buried it, but: "Further analysis by Carnegie Mellon’s Daegon Cho and
Alessandro Acquisti, found that ... the policy reduced swearing and “anti-
normative” behavior at the aggregate level by as much as 30% ..."

Seems pretty compelling (and positive) to me.

~~~
tomjen3
It sounds extreemly draconian to me.

"anti-normative behaviour" is just an extreemly faux-elitist word for what
business calls out of the box thinking.

It can be good or it can be bad, but a simple reduction to the mean (which is
what it implies) is nearly by definition bad. Societies that are chaotic and
disorderly may seem worse of than societies that march in lock-step and where
everybody wears the same uniform and everybody is the same, but the latter
society is guaranteed never to advance, no matter how far ahead its present
state is.

~~~
invisible
I don't get what you are trying to imply... You do not walk up to people in
public and criticize their gender, sexuality, appearance, intelligence, and
more just because you do not agree with their opinion. "Anti-normative" is
pretty vague but I'm assuming it is covering that subset of things that may
not be cursing but are still negative. It seems that you are making the term
fit some assumed oppression on society when it's just trying to make people
not be dicks.

~~~
DanBC
Some people do.

Some people do wolf-whistle at women, or shout things at them from moving
vehicles.

Some people do stare at disabled people; or laugh at the learning disabled, or
mock those with facial disfigurement.

Some people do chant abuse at those of a different race or ethnicity.

Some people deny others jobs (or equal pay) because of the sexual preference
or gender or disability or race or religion or age of the employee - even
though many countries have had anti-discrimination laws for years.

Here's examples of real people, in the real world, with real identities
attached ("The licence plate was ..." or "the company was...") with real
penalties attached (sometimes) and yet these people are still being dicks.

I'm not convinced that asking someone to pick a realistic sounding name is
going to stop someone from being a dick.

~~~
milesskorpen
The whole point of the research is that it cuts down this behavior by 30%.
Seems pretty good.

------
Produce
So the Google ecosystem was a bad idea after all. I knew it. First they lure
you in with a slick web mail client and a couple of gigabytes of storage. Then
they buy up a bunch of companies, including YouTube. Then they link your
Google and YouTube accounts together. And now your Google identity is suddenly
your YouTube identity which is linked to your real name. I didn't ask or sign
up for the vast majority of this!

~~~
jkn
I don't really use YouTube so I can't say, but is there anything preventing
you from keeping separate accounts on Gmail and YouTube, something that makes
it less convenient than if these websites were run independently of one
another?

~~~
pi18n
It seems that Google will log you in across all of their services if you log
into one. So to use separate names, you would have to be logging in and out
whenever you switch services.

~~~
reddit_clone
Or use multiple browsers.

~~~
jkn
Or use incognito windows. But yeah I see how that makes it less convenient.

------
mindslight
You know what would actually improve comments? A browser extension that posted
Markov chain generated trolling, recognized such comments from other
instances, and then removed the auto-generated comments _and their replies_.
Most "trolling" is just unintrospective but earnest people arguing at other
morons. Trap them in a honeypot.

~~~
mokus
Serious question - how do you stop the trolls from running that extension too?

------
the1
For a couple of years, I used my real full name as an id. That didn't stop me
from trolling. But, when people stopped replying to my comments, I stopped
trolling. Just my experience.

------
ThomPete
Real names in themselves solves nothing.

It's when what you write gets broadcasted to people you know, it starts to
have an effect.

But IMHO nothing beats a strong debate culture with strong pre-emptive
moderation, clear rules and an intelligent crowd.

~~~
marvin
I've seen ridiculously hostile and inappropriate comments posted with full
name and photo (using the Facebook comment system).

As a particularly dramatic example, which was so bad it was almost art, we had
a debate in a Norwegian newspaper about what to do with the traveling Romani
people who put up their tents everywhere. One commenter said: "Why not put
Anders Behring Breivik on the case? He cleaned up a camping site in an hour",
referring to the Utøya massacre where 69 camping teenagers were killed.

If someone's able to post that with their full name and photo, I don't really
think there's any hope of solving the comment problem without old-fashioned
moderation.

~~~
rossjudson
Freedom of speech means that they're able to post crap like that. It also
means that the poster will deal with the consequences.

~~~
marvin
Of course, I'd defend people's right to say stuff like this. And in a twisted
way, it was really funny. But it doesn't make for very good discussion.

------
DanBC
> _“People behave a lot better when they have their real names down._

I've read plenty of mailing lists where real names are used and people behave
appallingly. See also fidonet; Usenet; some wikis; some web forums.

And do they actually want a real name, or just something that sounds like a
real name?

"Ivor Trotts" only makes YouTube videos about bowels?

------
Tsagadai
Note the date for the KCC's move to scrap it (the date is today for those who
didn't read the source). The real names policy has been used by the government
and corporations to stifle serious discussions and criticisms in South Korea.
Korea has a really strong and trivially abusable libel law, the [Cyber
defamation law](<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_defamation_law>).
Basically, right now in Korea, I cannot criticise the accuracy or validity of
a news article online without giving the journalist a strong case for suing me
for damaging their career of ineptitude. The law is completely ambiguous and
even allows political figures to sue opponents for criticising their policies.

That, and as a coder the way the law was worded made it very difficult to
actually comply with securely. Politicians are the last people you want to
have writing a data retention policy for you.

------
masklinn
> YouTube has joined a growing list of social media companies who think that
> forcing users to use their real names will make comment sections less of a
> trolling wasteland

Do they?

~~~
_delirium
I agree that that's probably not YouTube's main goal. They rolled out the
real-names policy at the same time for video uploads, which I think is
probably really what they want to tie to real names.

------
ThomPete
The best way to improve comments is to charge for your service. well.com have
probably some of the most amazing discussions I have ever been part of. Sadly
the website is slowly waning. But there are great great discussions in there
and all of them well behaved even when it gets heated.

You own your words

------
stcredzero
_> In 2007, South Korea temporarily mandated that all websites with over
100,000 viewers require real names, but_ scraped [sic] _it after it was found
to be ineffective..._

In other news, TC editors still found to be ineffective.

------
kmfrk
People write a lot of vitriol on Facebook and in Facebook comments. I guess
you can be hopeful, but experience shows that it doesn't exactly stop the
stupidity entirely.

------
grandalf
One thing I don't understand is if "real name" means that I have to use my
real name or that my username must consist of a made up first name and made up
last name...

------
dredmorbius
Pseudonyms and anonymity are also an established part of many cultures -- for
good reason.

\- Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering, Google

[http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-to-
be...](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-to-be-who-you-
want-to-be.html)

------
rocky1138
Isn't there a culture difference between Korea and
America/Canada/England/France/Russia? Perhaps there are more variables at
stake here than just whether or not it's a person's real name.

It's neat that this didn't work in Korea, but that doesn't mean it won't work
elsewhere.

~~~
rrbrambley
Yeah, what this study doesn't acknowledge (or at least via TechCrunch's
perspective) is that the culture (and more broadly, the country) in which the
website visitors live (in the offline world) would probably contribute to how
they present themselves to an online community. I would imagine that people
might go as far as to speak in a way that they think will reflect on
themselves positively in the physical "real" world, if they care about their
reputation in their physical community. However, if you live in a rural
community, you might not care as much, because your reputation online does not
necessarily transfer to the real world and affect relationships with people
you see on a daily basis.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
I think real names do make difference. It makes you effectively self censor,
because every comment is a statement with your name with it. Do you often
troll you boss or clients / customers?

~~~
rossjudson
This is where Slashdot's "anonymous coward" really starts to shine. Sure, you
can post anonymously, but ac can get filtered out very quickly. Anonymous
should mean anonymous, not pseudonym-anonymous.

------
ck2
Can you imagine in the USA if individuals were allowed to donate millions
completely anonymously to political campaigns but not allowed to post a
comment online without a real name by law?

------
ahi
So we really are that dumb? A little depressing knowing people aren't ashamed
by their ignorance.

------
dhughes
Damn, I'm going to have to change my username to rocketboy2354.

------
franzus
> I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say
> whatever they want behind closed doors.

God forbid people could freely say what they think. This obviously has to be
prevented or our civilisation might collapse.

I'm strictly pro anonymity. If prude people don't like something they read on
the internet they probably shouldn't read it ... or visit the internet at all.

~~~
praxulus
Some people want to be able to have the same kinds of social interactions they
have in the real world, but with the convenience of the internet.

We've gone thousands of years with certain social norms (e.g. not being
anonymous most of the time), and so far replicating those social interactions
faithfully online has been difficult. There's nothing wrong with free speech
unrestrained by social expectations, but there's similarly nothing wrong with
wanting to avoid that sometimes. Why should you get the internet all to
yourself?

~~~
Sanddancer
I come from an abusive family. In the past, moving on from that would mean
simply moving to another town. With the internet, abusers are now free to
stalk and harass regardless of geography; the old norm of pulling up stakes
and heading on is gone. Requiring real names would mean that every jilted ex-
lover, every insane sibling, every schoolyard bully can see exactly what
you're doing, any time they want. Frankly, I'd rather deal with a few more
trolls than deal with that.

~~~
invisible
This was a problem before the Internet. Change your name and do not contact
people from your past ever.

