

Why Facebook and Google's Concept of "Real Names" Is Revolutionary - ChrisArchitect
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/why-facebook-and-googles-concept-of-real-names-is-revolutionary/243171/

======
Hyena
It's worth pointing out that there's a difference between "anonymity" and
"not-my-real-name". Most people on the Internet are probably not anonymized by
their screennames/handles/nicks/whatever-the-kids-call-them-now because they
work hard to integrate that online identity across services. It is a real,
tangible identity even though it is completely separate from the physical
person.

We shouldn't underestimate the value of that identity, or of stepping outside
the identities we have in the working world. Some people would rather be known
totally and solely as the guy who posts funny stuff to Reddit and contributes
to open source projects, not as the 34 year-old IT worker who gets yelled at
every morning by a boss he hates.

~~~
notatoad
the important thing about pseudonymity is that it is transient. if, an hour
from now, i decide i want to be sex_girl_69, i can do that and you're not
going to know that's the same person as me. i can always come back to being
notatoad again tomorrow.

you only have one real identity, and it is forever. a pseudonym might be a
completely functional identity and just as real as your legal name, but the
point is that it has a degree of freedom that you will never have with an
identity built around a legal name.

~~~
Swizec
On the internet ... yes it will. The freedom is simply there.

Hell, even in the real world you have all this freedom. When I introduce
myself as Swizec in real life, nobody questions anymore whether that's my
legal real name or not. They just take it that that's what they are supposed
to call me.

Pseudonymity is a _much more_ real concept than people are willing to admit to
themselves. In fact, at this very instance, everybody in the world is
pseudonymous. Most just choose not to exercise this freedom.

~~~
reidmain
Why do you suppose more people on the Internet choose to exercise this right
then in real-life?

I had never considered that the level of pseudonymity available on the
Internet is available in real-life as well. Really the only thing that the
real-life has which you can't change would be your DNA.

~~~
bricestacey
In real life you can maintain pseudymity by just never exposing your identity.
This happens all the time, much more often than the Internet (e.g. As I type
this under a tree by the road of my uni, no one knows who I am and yet my nick
here absolutely identifies me).

~~~
reidmain
Because you are being so open about it why do you feel you need to use a nick
in real-life?

A lot conversations for this story seem to have focused on the concept of
permanence with a nickname. If you use the same nickname across a multitude of
services then you've created a "real" identity.

I'm trying to understand peoples reasoning for this. To me there seems to be
two prevalent reasons:

1) You want your single identity to be under a name you choose, not have it be
forced upon you like you real name was.

2) You want to maintain a multitude of identities each with a specific
purpose.

------
benbeltran
In the end, isn't user's choice a compelling factor in deciding such matters?
We know what you're trying to do, but you can't force people to be social, at
least not without some awkwardness and discontent.

Let us speak clearly: They tell us why it's good for us that we use our real
names, and they may be right. But they don't tell us why it's bad for them
that we don't. If it's not bad for them, then why restrict user's choice?
People socialize in different ways, in my opinion, a good social network would
be flexible enough to allow different people socialize in a way that is most
comfortable to them.

EDIT: My legal name is not "Ben Beltran". Nonetheless, almost everybody in
real life and online knows me this way, few know my actual long name and most
think I'm called benjamin. I believe this name attaches my statements to my
person more than my legal name does. I consider this my "Real Name"

~~~
ristretto
It's bad for them, because it breaks the whole concept. The concept is that if
you start with requiring real name, you prime people to give you the "real"
things you like, your "real" preferences etc. It sets the tone, you are not
longer spontaneous, you are "serious". Of course, it's all scaremongering:
social networks don't have real informative comment, most people share jokes,
mindless pleasantries and play games.

~~~
timwiseman
_social networks don't have real informative comment_

I beg to differ. I mostly use facebook to keep in touch with my extended
family. Most of it is updates on our children. While that is probably of
little significance to anyone outside my extended family, it is important to
us.

Others though use social networks to find jobs, talk about their most recent
artistic project, discuss research, and keep in touch with business contacts.
And those are within my social circles. If we step further out, they have been
used as a tool with major political consequences in many places.

~~~
ristretto
my bad. I meant "content of significance to the general public"; i assume your
family could tell who you are just from your picture, the issue here is
whether you should use your identity outside the social network when you
create such "content of significance". It's very rare that you find original
content inside social networks, they are mostly amplifiers for content found
elsewhere.

------
storborg
The author's example of screaming in the street is moot: most meaningful
social interactions happen in a setting with far more information about the
people you're interacting with: e.g. a college bar, a tradeshow, a cocktail
party, a museum.

You're very rarely interacting with no context at all, and most interactions
are among friends, where you have much more information than is contained in a
Facebook profile.

~~~
Hyena
And more careful selection of who knows it, generally, with less ability for
people to verify what they've been told if they stand outside the trusted
circle. Moreover, memory isn't permanent in the brain but social network
companies seem to be interested in making it very permanent in the data
center.

~~~
storborg
True, but let's not conflate the issues of identity vs. verification vs.
permanence. People can still lie on their social networking profiles, and
anything in the real world can still be recorded. Even if social networking
companies didn't push to make their data persistent, any viewer of that data
could cache it for all time.

~~~
alex_c
>let's not conflate the issues of identity vs. verification vs. permanence

I think that's the entire point of the article - that those issues combine to
be a factor on social networks in a way that they very rarely do offline.

To put it another way: on social networks, assuming you use your real name
(which is the issue), all three of identity, verification, and permanence are
true by default, and false only as exceptions. Offline, you may get one or
two, but rarely all three at once.

------
bgutierrez
Of course, the revolution actually started back in 1985, with The WELL and the
idea that YOYOW (You Own Your Own Words.)

------
kanja
This strikes me as less an argument for pseudonyms and more an argument for
impermanence. It seems to me that the thought experiment is more like putting
a mask on, and then yelling your revolutionary ideas, rather than doing it in
public and just hoping to not be recognized.

~~~
kscaldef
Not really. If I shout something on the street, it's virtually impossible for
the people around me to figure out who I am (unless they already know me).
With real names attached to everything, even if the statement is impermanent,
it's essentially trivial for "bystanders" to track down your identify.

~~~
sorbus
If one of the bystanders cares enough, they'll use their phone to take a
picture of you. From there it's entirely possible to link that picture of you
to other pictures of you online (facial recognition and all that), and then to
your identity, if there are any publicly accessible pictures of you online
that are linked to your identity. Or they could share it with their social
network, hoping that there's some overlap.

Similarly, if I hear someone shout something that interests me, I can begin a
conversation with them which may lead to getting details of their identity,
unless they're actively concealing those details. Or follow them home, and so
forth, as you start moving to less and less ethical options.

Attaching real names to statements online does make the process ridiculously
easy, though, and it would probably be useful if social networks had a "do not
expose my identity (in comments, etc.) to people who are not already my
friends (or friends of friends)." That seems (to me, at least) to be rather
more similar to how the real world works.

~~~
shabble
The absolutely massive photo database owned (or at least permanent irrevocably
licensed access and storage) by Facebook, combined with the metadata people
are more than happy to provide (Tagging their friends bodies & faces) sounds
like an absolutely perfect training set for an automated recognition system.

You'll even get all sorts of different angles, lighting conditions, age
variations, and just about anything else you might want.

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but there's something about it
that makes me at least a little uneasy.

~~~
sorbus
Facebook apparently already has a facial recognition system, which startles me
a bit. Not surprising in the least, of course, just I'm worried that I hadn't
heard of it before.

------
hack_edu
It surprises me how much the argument that those anti-Real Name believe this
way because they "don't understand and have never ran their own business" or
are old-fashioned. This argument is used around here to explain away anyone
that doesn't agree with your favorite startups's angle...

Its so much more complicated than that. The clearcut assumption that those who
express this particular ideal are immature and inexperienced is ridiculous.

------
RexRollman
Revolutionary? Disappointing is the word I would use.

------
flocial
Well, if you yelled "down with government" on a street in North Korea you
wouldn't be anonymous for long. If you yelled "f*ck the police" in the hearing
range of an American cop you'd probably be identified and harassed. What's at
stake is a social compact that we respect free speech and privacy. Real name
policies violate that from the outset. Of course, it keeps comment sections
civil but you don't go to a random bar with a sticker stating your full name
and address. But that doesn't make the interactions any less meaningful. It's
not so much the anonymity but being able to keep a relaxed distance from being
judged for what you say or who you are.

------
reidmain
The scenario where a person doesn't want to use their real name because they
are fleeing an abusive relationship or are they are a rape survivor, etc I
don't have a solution for.

But for everyone else god forbid that you have to think twice before posting
something on the Internet. I use my real name for basically everything online
(save video game networks which is more just out of habit really) and I try to
consciously filter myself because I know I am writing in ink.

Short of the extreme edge cases where a person is attempting to hide from
someone because they fear for their life, the main argument against using real
names always seems to boil down to someone waiting to share something radical
and controversial but not having it tied to their physical persona.

Social networks like Facebook and Google+ are more about those close connected
relationships that you would get if you lived in a small town (at least that
is how I look at them) and if someone wants to spew their ideas anonymously
then let them find another saloon in the wild wild west that is the Internet.

~~~
timwiseman
_Short of the extreme edge cases where a person is attempting to hide from
someone because they fear for their life, the main argument against using real
names always seems to boil down to someone waiting to share something radical
and controversial but not having it tied to their physical persona._

May I point out that those extreme edge cases, while rare, are also extremely
important? That person fleeing an abusive relationship is probably far more in
need of a swift effective communications medium to get social support,
practical advice and even to just plain tell their story than most people are.

And you are forgetting other cases that are just a touch less extreme but
still relevant. The young adult struggling with their orientation may be
desperate to avoid having certain people discover this fact while equally
desperate to find others in a similar situation for that support and advice.

I am the first to say that Google and Facebook are private businesses and how
they handle their business is up to them, but if we are going to have a real
discussion of the reprecussions of their decisions then we need to remember
that these edge cases are real and they are important.

~~~
reidmain
You are right. I didn't mean to downplay these edge cases as much as I did.

Is the concern that Facebook and Google's decisions are going to permeate so
far it will become common place or that because these two social networks are
the big dogs that it is unfair (for lack of a better word) for the edges cases
to not be able to participate?

~~~
timwiseman
I think some of both. Many sites that accept comments now encourage commenters
to log in with their facebook accounts, so that can be a major factor. I hve
not seen it yet, but I suspect something similar will happen as G+ leaves beta
and becomes more established with it.

Also, as I have read in other commenters, a social network is only valuable if
your friends are on it, so while alternatives exist it may be hard to find the
people you need to find on them.

~~~
reidmain
I agree that Google+ will probably get in on some sort of "Login with Google+"
thing.

I guess someone could see this as this real name policy then "infecting" the
Internet. It would really come down to why are these sites implementing this
service. If they are doing it for ease of use, so the user doesn't have to
create another account, and there are no alternatives that don't require you
to use your real name then that could be bad.

But if these sites also want people to use their real names because they feel
it would foster a greater sense of community then that is their prerogative.

There is no one service yet that rules over the Internet and so there will
always be alternatives. If a service requires you to use your real name then
you can just choose not to use it.

I'd grow more concerned if governments and ISPs attempted to implement a
"driver's license" for the Internet. Personally I wouldn't mind this but a lot
of people obviously would.

------
comex
It's not just "anonymous" versus "real identity", either. In real life,
everyone acts differently with different groups of people; since you're rarely
with (e.g.) family and friends at the same time, you essentially have two
separate identities, free to develop in slightly different directions. The
fact that everyone knows your name doesn't matter if there is no global state
associated with a name.

Of course, Circles are Google's attempt to mirror this, although I think they
do so poorly: rather than there being a mental "context shift" as in real
life, posts from all your circles are mixed together, and you have to decide
on a context each time you post. In practice, I share everything publicly
because it's the path of least resistance; the result is not much different
from Facebook.

------
Robin_Message
I'm actually really interested in the idea of social networks becoming part of
physical life and reducing our disconnectedness. When we lived in villages,
everyone knew everyone. In a city, nobody knows who you are. But with a
physical social network in the picture, suddenly the city is looking like the
village again.

Everyone knowing everyone has advantages and disadvantages. Obviously, out-
group behaviour can be more easily identified and punished. This is useful for
reducing out-group behaviour you disapprove of, e.g. crime, but bad because it
discourages out-group behaviour you approve of, e.g. radical political
opinions.

One example: I would love to be able to give karma scores to other drivers,
and I bet insurance companies would be interested too.

~~~
patio11
Insurance companies already do this with FICO scores, which are scandalously
good predictors of risk for just about anything. (Pick your favorite
explanation: they correlate with irresponsibility and that correlates with bad
outcomes, or they correlate with poverty and bad things happen to poor
people.)

Someone is eventually going to take the old "You are the average of your five
best friends" adage and create a score (a set of scores, more likely) based on
it. That will either be illegalized within a year or make billions. (My
cynical rationale on it getting political heat is that it will be probably
better than human judgment, like FICO, hit some people hard, like FICO, and
strike people as "unearned", unlike the layman's understanding that FICO
scores are dominated by your behavior as opposed to the behavior of other
people.)

------
hammock
I wonder how the US (Chicago, etc) and UK (everywhere) policy of having street
cameras everywhere for "security" changes his street-shouting example.

The simple fact remains that "the internet is forever." It is more public and
persistent than just about any other place imaginable. That comes with its
pros and cons.

~~~
kenjackson
I doubt it changes it much, unless they make it easily searchable via Google.

------
NHQ
How did anybody read past paragraph seven of that mess? And I skimmed the
opening fluff to get that far.

------
jsavimbi
> They are creating tighter links between people's behavior and their
> identities than has previously existed in the modern world.

Since the advent of the internet, people are self-publishing at a rate never
before experienced in the history of humanity. Everything we do today has
always existed, except it was never as easy to record and disseminate, nor as
cheaply to publish and store for posterity let alone broadcast it to the
entire world.

Before the internet, you had to hire an autobiographer, an editor and a
publisher to broadcast your minute thoughts; nowadays any bum can tell what he
or she is doing, thinking, planning, rehearsing or not twenty-four hours a
day, seven days a week.

