i'm not referring to the smell of roses

Okay, for the record, if one more person trots out a sweetly naive statement about how real names make you nicer and improve accountability, please for the love of God actually learn what the internet is (hint: it requires actually getting on it and not theorizing about it). Once that has been achieved, go to Facebook--I'm assuming you can find it--and look at what all those real names actually do, what groups they make--under their names--and what they say--again, under their names.

IRL we do shitty things under our real names. If empathy and accountability are supposed to be synonymous with real names, then your understanding of the history of the human race is fatally goddamn flawed.

I'm not going to defend pseudonymity by making arguments about all the reasons why someone would or should or could or needs to; no one should have to, since that's what life is.

We live IRL pseudonymity all the time; my son, my parents, my coworkers, my boss all use different variations of my name, my title, my salutation, some pieces of which will never show up on a driver's license or government record, and yet, somehow, the internet claims a higher fucking authority than the parents who raised me, the child I am raising, my boss, my minister, my best friend, my sisters, my aunt, my friends, my classmates, people I meet at clubs, people I meet in other countries, and what I call myself?

To clarify: google+ requires a higher level of disclosure than my actual honest to God real life. And it requires I give that to everyone, ever, in perpetuity.

Are. You. Serious?

I'm not so much wondering if anyone arguing Real Names for All has ever been to the internet, but exactly how you navigate real life at all.

Crossposted to google+ and LJ. I miss crossposting.

Comments

[libitina]

Word!

[devildoll]

ASK ME HOW CERTAIN PEOPLE IN WOLVERINE/ROGUE FANDOM FINDING OUT MY REAL NAME AND ADDRESS MADE THEM NICER AND MORE ACCOUNTABLE. I WILL EXPLAIN. WITH SCREENCAPS.

alkdjflakdjkljadkljfalskdjflkajdfkljadskljfRAGE

[abbylee]

No, no. Obviously them finding out your real name made *you* nicer. Clearly their pseudonymy is the reason for their asshole behaviour.

/me RAGES WITH YOU.

[devildoll]

Two of them didn't use pseuds but they were such horrible people it made no difference!

I CAN PROVE THE THEORY WRONG FROM MANY DIRECTIONS.

[seperis]

It's weird how people who are dicks don't really care about what name they're using to be dicks. It's crazy like--maybe the name doesn't affect the personality or something. Maybe they're dicks no matter what.

...crazy, I know.

[slybrarian]

Every time I see someone make an argument about how using real names will prevent trolling and abuse, I immediately know that they have never worked a service job. I can't count the number of times I've been screamed in person, and I don't even work in a position where I have to deal with money. At least online I can hit 'block' regardless of what type of name someone is using. In real life, I have to hope a coworker will show up to investigate the yelling, and that the irate customer won't pull out a state-legislature-sanctioned firearm. (It's illegal here for public facilities to ban the possession of guns on the property.)

[seperis]

Hell, have they been to a bus stop or say, walked down a street? Why the hell should your name be randomly given to any passer by?

*shudders* Did time in fast food and retail. Yeah.

[firesprite1105]

Seriously. I deleted my G+ account last night. There was a great article with instructions on how to do it without messing up gmail, but the link's on LJ, which I can't access at the moment.

[nagasvoice]

I believe somebody posted such a link here on DW also. If I find it again, will drag it back to you!

[niqaeli]

I've worked in customer-facing jobs um... actually, my whole fucking career. I have -- I don't know, really good karma or luck or something? I really don't get that many assholes and have never been screamed at and only rarely cursed at. (I wish I knew how I do this so I could bottle it or some thing.)

And some days I still want to set people on fire because they're fucking shits. And that's with everyone operating under their legal names, generally. So yeah. There's this.

Part of my problem is also I grew up in con-going SF&F fandom. People use what amount to pseuds regularly in meatspace fandom, and no one thinks they're sockpuppets or impolite because they haven't shared the name they have to use on their taxes.

How about we just give out our social security numbers? That way you can be sure we're really real and not figments of your imagination! (Oh... wait... no, actually, that doesn't quite work that way.)

[seekergeek]

I have two words for them: W!ll $h@tt@rly. A person who has always used his 'real' name and is so foul, so trollish, that the internets invented disemvowelling JUST FOR HIM.

I'm so glad I gave google+ a pass. 'Don't be Evil' my rather generous ass.

[majoline]

I was about to say, shush, before you bring the wrath of stupid down upon us! But you l33ted his names, so I dunno.

:D

[seekergeek]

The guy's like Voldemort, I know.

:-\

[elke_tanzer]

At least that makes it possible to pre-emptively ban/block him.

[litotease]

10 years. In a checkstand. In a grocery store.

And this was in a fairly small town; the shitty, cranky, mean, entitled ones were my neighbors. I knew where they lived.

So, sing it, sister.

[margrave]

a sweetly naive statement about how real names make you nicer and improve accountability

Really? Like, REALLY? Oh, wow.

I had a Google+ account for about a week without doing much with it (RL can be evil), then the whole deletion of accounts and the use of real name news got to me, and well, I deleted my account like there was no tomorrow.

You speak sense.

[synecdochic]

You have no idea how much i want to march into G+'s office and say "YOU ARE DOING THIS WRONG. LET ME FIX THIS FOR YOU. I HAVE TEN YEARS' PROOF THAT I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT."

[seperis]

You need an angry mob? We can organize an angry mob to help.

[synecdochic]

*g* If and when I need an angry mob, I will delegate the organizing of it to you.

The sheer arrogance of it just infuriates me. I mean, Google selects for engineering talent, not social understanding, in their hiring process, and then wonders why none of their social software gets anywhere! They honestly seem to think they can solve the problem of online harassment by an algorithm and requiring people use their real names. The arrogance of that is stunning. And those of us who live in the real world are just laughing at them.

[pixel]

Do we know this is an 'engineers making policy decisions' type problem? I just can't fathom a group of engineers with more than 6 months time on the internet going 'real names! woo! that will fix things!' but I can always be wrong. I get the chilling feeling this goes way higher up (and more sinister) than that.

Count me in for angry mob duty. My goddamn PHONE is Google....I am SO angry.

[rheanna]

Yes, thank you, THIS. I don't understand why the concept of a person wanting or needing to present themselves to the world under different names is apparently such a difficult one for Google and a lot of people supporting the "real names are always best" position to grasp. Quite apart from the fact that many, many people have really good reasons for not wanting to throw lots of personal identifying information out there, it's not a new thing that an individual might be called ten different things by ten different people and all those names are *her*.

[niciasus]

It's scary to know these big internet companies want to know who you really are. Some employers during the interview are asking potential employees do you have facebook account. Wow, next they'll be asking do you have a Google + account.

[akacat]

Shades of Blizzard's "Real ID" mess. That was fun, particularly when an employee posted "I'm not afraid to use my real name, nothing will happen!" -- with his real name.

Within 30 minutes someone privately messaged him with his full address and cell phone number, and publicly posted such fun facts as the color of his bedroom walls and name of his dog.

The employee immediately posted "oh shit son, I was wrong". It took Blizzard several more weeks to get the clue, but they finally backed down.

[rike_tikki_tavi]

I read a loooong discussion about this on some Google+ account or other yesterday and from what that guy (who's kinda friends with Google's Vice-President and sorta speaking for him there) said, it sounds like they don't even mind if you use a fake name as long as it looks like what they think a name should look like. Because, you know, Jane Smith is a nice name. While Seperis or Rike Tikki Tavi or Dracolover83 have cooties or something.

RAGE!!!

[fyrdrakken]

Earlier today I ran across a set of posts coming from several people in Hong Kong complaining that Google+ was cancelling HK accounts for having English names on them and going, hello, we were an English colony, most of us have English names we use IRL but hardly any of them are on our formal ID... Basically the arrogance and cultural insensitivity of banning HK accounts because the names don't look like what Google people think they should look like.

[rike_tikki_tavi]

Yep, I'd seen that, too.

And it makes no sense. One of the nice things on the internet is that you get to meet people, who are different, from all corners of the world, from all walks of life. So why make them conform to one arbitrary system of names. It doesn't even work like this in meatspace, so why the hell try it on the internet.

[slashbluegreen]

http://www.findpeopleonplus.com/
(insert irony: all those data, waiting just for meeee! The things i could do with so much information, this is marketing heaven!!)
May I make a prediction: we non-RL-namers are totally a minority and thus won't be served any longer by google.