When anonymous speech is destroyed, whether under a boot and rifle shot, or via a simple mouse click on a massive social networking site, the damage is strikingly similar in the long run.
People become nervous about speaking their minds. They fear what their neighbor or employer will find out about their private lives. They self-censor and retreat from public life and discourse.
Anybody, and any firm, that encourages such travesties should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
Our fellow human beings, and history itself, demand no less.
All over the Web, we've seen signs that powerful interests are simply "fed up" with the free flow of information that anonymous comments permit [...] (and are) demanding that comments be signed with real names.What signs are these, exactly? The powerful interests are building great firewalls or simply turning the Internet off. They are not switching to Facebook comments for their fuckyeahoppression tumblr.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."—Anatole France.posted by octobersurprise at 8:57 AM on March 8, 2011 [5 favorites]
When surveyed, 16% to 68% of LGBT people report experiencing employment discrimination.posted by ericb at 12:10 PM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]
Fifteen to 57% of transgender people also report experiencing employment discrimination.
In states that currently prohibit sexual orientation discrimination, LGB people file complaints of employment discrimination at similar rates to women and racial minorities.
The big issue (I have) with Facebook Connect is that suddenly, all of your separate groups of contacts/friends/collegues get this weird insight into.. me. I don't want my collegues to see me planning my WoW raids or geeking out over the latest Captain America trailers or the intricacies of why Klingon foreheads changed.Which is why I rarely use facebook and when I do post stuff, it's the most bland everyone-would-like stuff I see off reddit. Before that I just never posted anything, and as a result, no one ever reads anything I post. The other thing is that I don't really care about 90% of the people I have 'friended' on there. If FB were only between my close friends I might post more stuff. But the nature of FB incentivizes you to rack up as many 'friends' as possible to avoid feeling inadequate.
I don't know what's going to make me famous/known and the farther and louder I spread myself the better.Lol, come on. First of all, how do you know you won't be embarrassed about something you write now ten years hence? Maybe you get famous but your old comments don't 'gel' with the persona you're trying to project? The only way to avoid this is to never say anything controversial. Which, of course, creates a more boring world.
But sometimes it can be an improvement on a site's previous comment forum.Disqus provides similar functionality without the need for an FB profile. The problem is it still tracks you across domains, which is annoying. But not AS bad.
Chinese blogger and activist Michael Anti wants to know why he is less worthy of a Facebook account than company founder Mark Zuckerberg's dog.posted by ericb at 3:01 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]
Anti, a popular online commentator whose legal name is Zhao Jing, said in an interview Tuesday that his Facebook account was suddenly canceled in January. Company officials told him by e-mail that Facebook has a strict policy against pseudonyms and that he must use the name issued on his government ID.
Anti argues that his professional identity as Michael Anti has been established for more than a decade, with published articles and essays.
Anti, a former journalist who has won fellowships at both Cambridge University and Harvard University, said he set up his Facebook account in 2007. By locking him out of his account, Facebook has cut him off from a network of more than 1,000 academic and professional contacts who know him as Anti, he said.
"I'm really, really angry. I can't function using my Chinese name. Today, I found out that Zuckerberg's dog has a Facebook account. My journalistic work and academic work is more real than a dog," he said.
Zuckerberg recently set up a Facebook page for "Beast," complete with photos and a profile. Unlike Anti's, however, the page for the puppy doesn't violate Facebook's policies because it's not meant to be a personal profile page. Rather, it's a type of page reserved for businesses and public figures that fans can "like" and receive updates from on their own Facebook pages.
Facebook officials weren't available to comment on the case. The company says its policy leads to greater trust and accountability for its users.
"We have tried to keep the rule simple and fair by saying personal profiles must always be set up in the real legal name of the individual concerned," it said by e-mail to Anti.
Dissidents in a variety of countries have argued that Facebook's policy can endanger human rights activists and others if their identities become known.
Anti said there is a long tradition in China for writers and journalists to take pen names, partly as protection from retaliation from authorities. If Facebook requires the use of real names, that could potentially put Chinese citizens in danger, he said.
"For my fellow Chinese, this policy could easily help Chinese police identify them," he said.
It's not the first time Anti has had problems with an Internet site. In 2005, his blog on a Microsoft site was shut down by the company following pressure from Chinese officials. Microsoft's action led to a public outcry.
Over the last few days, I’ve checked-in at several favorite haunts on Foursquare, favorited a few Lady Gaga and cat videos on YouTube, uploaded half a dozen photos of a cookie party to Instagram, and posted several status updates on Twitter and Facebook.From the Memolane website:
As individual pieces of data, each of these points contains a tiny bit of information about me and my life. But when combined, they start to shape into a larger narrative, a story of sorts about how I spent the last few days.
Memolane, a new start-up based in Denmark and San Francisco, is hoping to corral all of those data points into a single, visual timeline, to help users create an interactive scrapbook of sorts on the Web.
On Tuesday, the service officially opens to the public.
“The Internet tells the story of our lives and it is still unexplored,” said Eric Lagier, the founder of the service. “It is a modern-day scrapbook that writes itself.”
"See, Search, & Share your life. Capture photos, videos, music, tweets, posts, and much more. View and share your entire life online. Create stories of your best memories together with your friends. Explore and search your life and the lives of your friends online.",/blockquote>posted by ericb at 4:20 PM on March 8, 2011
"You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly … Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."Awwwwwww . . . isn't he adorable when he tries to talk about grownup topics?
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posted by asymptotic at 3:17 AM on March 8, 2011