
On Fake Instagram, a Chance to Be Real - prostoalex
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/fashion/instagram-finstagram-fake-account.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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gatsby
This is really fascinating, and I've heard similar stories from my younger
cousins about maintaining multiple accounts on FB, Instagram, etc.

"Real" social media = your fake life

"Fake" social media = your real life

edit:

Although, as I think about this, it's not much different from those of us who
are a generation or two removed from the people in the story.

I was on a call with a salesperson from a large company last week, so I
googled him to put a face to a name.

His linkedin featured a professional picture with a suit and tie, paragraphs
written in the third person (like account executives have biographers?), and
we had a dozen mutual connections in common. Connected with 500+ people.

His facebook profile told a very different story of vacations, beach
voleyball, parties, family events, and life. Connected with 100 people.

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zem
what gets me is how hard facebook doubles down on the "single account + real
name = authenticity" excuse. it's the exact antithesis of authenticity - the
more people you have following a single account, the more guarded and lowest-
common-denominator you have to be in order to not leak stuff from one area of
your life into another.

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johncolanduoni
I think that approach had some value in setting up a very different atmosphere
than MySpace in Facebook's early days. Especially since this was before people
started to realize what kind of scrutiny those accounts would face from
employers etc.

However, I think at this point they would be better off dropping it.
Facebook's tone has already been set, and the most common impact the real name
policy has at this point in time is its use as a weapon against transgender
users and those who need to maintain anonymity for fear of personal safety.

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zem
and the steady stream of people getting kicked off because their (perfectly
real) names look weird to anglophone americans.

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johncolanduoni
Too right! My favorite crash-course in the realities of names is "Falsehoods
Programmers Believe About Names"[1]. I think any programmer whose work deals
with any kind of personal information should google "Falsehoods Programmers
Believe About" and read all of them (gender, addresses, etc.).

[1]: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-
believe-about-names/)

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fwn
Authenticity is an interesting thing to think about. Beside clear and
pseudonymous identities, there is also the idea of having anonymous platforms
with no identity at all attached to the created content.

The guy who made 4chan, Christopher Poole, had a TED talk on that topic once:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_fo...](https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for_anonymity_online)

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personjerry
I would argue against this article's assertion about the "real" use of
Instagram. As a college student, my interpretation (and AFAIK my fellow
students') is that the real use of Instagram IS this small personal community,
not unlike Facebook. And indeed, this seems to be more intuitive, as pointed
out in some of the other comments here.

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jgh
well it's good to know i've been doing instagram wrong long enough that it's
come around for me to be doing it right.

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jghHelpPlease
Hey man,

Kind of need your help on the VideoCore project bro, where have you been?

Missing you.

Love, VideoCoreCommunity

~~~
jgh
lol really....

i've been incredibly busy over the past year or so, I'm sorry the project
hasn't gotten much love recently :(

