Ask HN: Have you created a 'fake' (pseudo anonymous) social account; if so, why?

[nomilk]

Australia will soon have laws to prevent people under 16 accessing social media. An 'internet licence' of sorts (sites will have to verify users' identities)

The Australian PM was asked how young minorities might find social groups without social media [1]. His reply was floundering but amounted to "in a face to face way".

When I think of anonymous or 'fake' (/burner) accounts, bad things (illegal or ~immoral) come to mind. But thinking more deeply, I ask myself "have I ever created a fake account?", and the answer is - "yeah, several times!" - for example:

- Burner reddit accounts, to comment or share info when (e.g. when doing so from my primary account would have been awkward for one reason or another)

- Ditto for HN

- Gmail accounts, usually for (software) testing purposes

- Before facebook had a feature to view your own profile, created a dummy account to see how it appeared to other users

- Probably more I've forgotten about

In these cases a 'dummy' account was/is very useful - it let me access and share information I or others needed. Curious to learn what others use (pseudo-anonymous | burner | 'fake' | 'dummy') social media accounts for?

The example given in a question to the Australian PM is a hypothetical about a young lgbtq person who may not be able to find anyone to speak to face to face (esp if their parents are not supportive), so social media is absolutely essential to finding like communities and learning about that aspect of themselves.

That's just one tiny (yet compelling) example.

What are your experiences; have you ever needed to create a 'fake' social media account, and if so, what for, what value did you get from it, and what were the alternatives (if any)?

[1] https://x.com/TalaatSYehia/status/1862389652126069231

[Snacklive]

Yes, i find myself really uncomfortable with the idea of having my "real" self online.

And it's not because i want to do something illegal or anything, and to be honest i can't point to the exact reason but i think it has something to do with the idea of people being able to extract a large portion of your life just from your internet information.

[ipnon → Snacklive]

A lot of this legislation is written by boomers who are assuming the Web works in the same way that they use it. They sign up at socialmedia.com using their email address firstname.lastname@bigtech.com. The Walled Garden model of the web has been so successful that legislators can’t even imagine a world outside it. They don’t even see the walls!

[Quinzel]

Yes I’ve had “pseudo anonymous” accounts (although probably easily traceable back to me for people who know what they’re doing). The main reason being I actually want to have a separate self that exists outside of my friend groups, work groups and family groups.

The other thing I have done is create fake gmail accounts so I could scam HelloFresh and continue receiving free boxes of HelloFresh by “signing up” as a new customer, and making referrals from my “master account” to all my fake accounts. I’d get my free box, then after the free box had been delivered, I’d unsubscribe the service and move onto the next account. I’d get new debit cards as well so I could upload fresh card details and use a fake names. I haven’t done it in ages, but I definitely got heaps of free food doing this.

[mvcatsifma → Quinzel]

How is this different from stealing something from your local grocery store?

[Quinzel → mvcatsifma]

They supermarket doesn’t deliver the items to my doorstep.

[qwer1234321]

I never had 'real' social media account, and never had 'immoral' intentions. I find it interesting phenomena how easily people switched from pseudonymes on the internet to using their real names, and now think there is something wrong by not providing real data.

[dakiol → qwer1234321]

Same here. Perhaps the only “real” social media account I have is Linkedin, but it’s private and only used for jobs.

[fragmede → qwer1234321]

> I never had 'real' social media account

That's funny, you have an account here.

[qwer1234321 → fragmede]

Yeah, and it's pseudonyme, not 'real', I thought that's what author of the post was reffering to

[throwaway519]

Ask these people..

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)

James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon)

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë)

Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë)

Acton Bell (Anne Brontë)

Qiu Jin (Jingxiong)

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

Victoria Lucas (Sylvia Plath)

Yi Sang (Kim Hae-gyeong)

Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)

Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton)

O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)

A. M. Barnard (Louisa May Alcott)

Richard Bachman (Stephen King)

Radclyffe Hall (Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall)

Langston Hughes (vaious)

Romain Gary (Roman Kacew)

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (George Sand)

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

Toni Morrison (Chloe Ardelia Wofford)

Pauline Réage (Anne Desclos)

Charles Chao (Zhao Yuanren)

[throwaway519 → throwaway519]

Australians, you say...

Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis)

Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson)

Miles Franklin (Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin)

Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton Paterson)

Joseph Furphy (Tom Collins)

C.J. Dennis (Clarence Michael James Dennis)

Barbara Baynton (Anon, initials)

Ethel Turner (Anon, initials)

[rererereferred]

I never disclose my real identity. Does that mean every account I make is fake? It's still me and I'm expressing my own opinions not fake opinions. You just don't know who is behind the account.

[nomilk → rererereferred]

That's interesting. Would your use of these sites be affected if you had to submit your ID to use the site (other users wouldn't know who you are, but the site and possibly forum admins may know or be able to find out).

[dakiol → nomilk]

No OP. I wouldn’t use social media sites if they require my ID. It’s just not worth it.

[scotty79 → nomilk]

If I had an account there I would not post anything ever. Even Facebook with real name policy which I obeyed, basically gets maybe one post from me every few years because it feels too dangerous to get people pissed at my primary identity. And people can get pissed at you for explaining science to them.

[qwer1234321 → nomilk]

Not original commenter, but I would opt not to use such social media. There is world outside of computer, less social media is less temptetion to waste time online :)

[tlhunter]

I had to create some fake accounts as a pen name for paid articles that I had written. They were controversial takes on technology that my employer didn't need to know about. Think "Why React Sucks", etc.

[firecall]

It’s standard practice to create multiple Facebook accounts to manage Facebook Ads.

Never ever use your own Facebook account, and make sure you have multiple connected.

Some agencies have vigorous practices around it due to the nightmares of getting banned or locked out of creating ads.

Same with Google.

You just can’t or rather shouldn’t run big ad accounts using your own Google or Facebook accounts. But yet these companies don’t have a concept of accounts for just admin and business purposes.

[mikewarot]

I tend to either be MikeWarot or ka9dgx, with almost no exceptions. I can't imagine life on the internet as my friend Mike Smith... never having your own name as an account. I've only bumped into the another Mike Warot online, once.

Facebook once had a game that rewarded you, but not much, Mafia Wars, so I had an alternate ID to play the game, but that was it.

[CM30]

Uh, I don't think I've ever really used my real identity online. So I guess every account would be 'fake' under these criteria? Huh, I just find it baffling how few people seem to care the slightest bit about their 'privacy' (or keeping the internet profile separate from their real life one), and how willing they are to just share all their personal info with the world for free.

I'm also very skeptical that the Australian authorities will be able to police this at all, since well... what incentive does the rest of the world have to care? They're not gonna try and block every site that doesn't authenticate their users, and many sites simply won't have a presence on Australian soil. So we'll probably see a huge flood of anonymous and pseudononymous social media platforms anyway.

[scotty79]

I just don't want the history of everything I ever said online to be easily scrappable and connected to my name and address.

All the things I've said are me but different facets of me that I may or may not want to reveal to other people and even when I do I want to have option to reveal them on my terms and pace.

[KomoD]

> have you ever needed to create a 'fake' social media account, and if so, what for, what value did you get from it, and what were the alternatives (if any)?

Yes, Linkedin, just so I can view profiles and posts without getting the login wall.

[ttyprintk]

For any serious use of social media data, a forensic professional would not use their own identity.

[bediger4000]

I used to switch to a new account when I gained privilege to do extra voting, or extra down voting. I switched to a new account on slashdot a few times, after gaining enough karma for whatever extra they allowed. I did it here on HN, back in 2012.

[mickelsen]

Bring back the forums, flickr, good old chatrooms and the DIY web as alternatives. Reject anything that mandates your real ID. Reject any attempts by politicians in your respective countries to copy this kind of stuff, that includes laws "against fake news and spread of disinformation/hate speech", a trojan horse used to identify political adversaries using anonymous accounts; I'll keep on insulting them online and troll with friends whenever they come up with stuff like that.

[zhengiszen]

I think of creating a new hacker news account because of censorship. Since the latest genocide of Palestinians, I posted war related articles. Because of I've been wrongly tagged and all my posts are blocked even those not related to the war.