"My name is only real enough to work at Facebook, not to use on the site
June 29, 2015 7:23 AM   Subscribe

Facebook's "authentic name" policy drew protests this weekend. Zip@Medium: A woman responsible for expanding Facebook's gender categories was blocked for using the name she used on the job. Nads@Wired: "All I’ve gotten for my troubles are nearly two dozen emails from Facebook informing Nads about everything she’s missing out on by not logging in, and a request for feedback about my experience." The Guardian: Radical Faeries and #MyNameIs protest Facebook's sponsorship of San Francisco Pride.

Zip suggests that online name policies can influence on-ground support networks:
Facebook is a vital tool for community, especially for those of us who are marginalised. It withholds our access to friends and support in order to enforce their policy, and in so doing we are faced with a stark choice between a name we do not identify with and do not want to use, or being disconnected. If we make the choice to stay we find ourselves increasingly recognised by other people by that forced name.

By forcing us to change our names on the site, Facebook changes the names we are known by in real life — whether we like it or not.
Relevant tags: #MyNameIs and #LogOffForPride.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos (65 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
But, but... if Facebook doesn't know exactly who you are, howcan they sell your data!

Communities make and preserve community, businesses exploit them.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:35 AM on June 29, 2015 [7 favorites]


It's so stupid. My cousin changed her name to something random on Facebook because she was being stalked on her real name account and Facebook still kicked up a fuss about it. She changed it again to something that LOOKS like a "real" name, and then they left her alone. Just pointless.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:42 AM on June 29, 2015 [7 favorites]


That was a bit off the cuff, but I do have an issue with:

So Facebook wants you to be your authentic self because they believe that authenticity is what makes the site appealing.

But, surely, in that case, Facebook wouldn't care what that "authentic name" was, would they?
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:44 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


So not even comparable, but - I've gone by Liz since I was like 5 or 6. "Elizabeth" is what it says on my birth certificate, but unless you're my grandparents, it is simply not my name.

In second grade, I had a teacher who flatly refused to call me Liz, because "we go by our proper names in this class." I still remember the exact phrase she used, because I remember how incredibly arbitrary and pointless and petty and mean it was.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:49 AM on June 29, 2015 [36 favorites]


I actually don't think there's a problem with Facebook asking you to use the name that you use in real life. But that shouldn't have to be a legal name.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:50 AM on June 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


One of my friends just started her transition, and she's been using Facebook to talk about the tough parts and the rewarding parts, and to get support from her friends. And since it takes a while to update ID, I worry she's at risk of getting locked out of her Facebook account right at the time when she needs her support the most.

And at least she has the option of changing the name on her ID. I have another friend who started transitioning at twelve, but wasn't able to legally change his name until 19 because our province makes it super difficult for a minor to change their name when one of their parents isn't in the picture. This was back before Facebook's name policy was getting so much mainstream attention and, thankfully, no small minded assholes reported him. But his worst-case scenario was being unable to use his gender-affirming name on Facebook for seven years until he turned 19.

This policy is such bullshit.
posted by Banknote of the year at 7:54 AM on June 29, 2015 [7 favorites]


showbiz_liz: second grade, I had a teacher who flatly refused to call me Liz, because "we go by our proper names in this class.

"Now class, we will read pages ten through twenty of A A Milne's 'The Adventures of Winnie The Shit'".
posted by dr_dank at 7:55 AM on June 29, 2015 [27 favorites]


> Communities make and preserve community, businesses exploit them.

The glorious thing about this capitalist system of ours is that it doesn't have to be either-or: Facebook can exploit the data that communities produce without every member of that community providing their legal name!

I marched with the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club in SF's pride parade yesterday, and it was a contingent that included the #mynameis folks (or they included us, I dunno; we included each other). I am aware of the irony of posting a photo of myself holding a #mynameis sign on facebook, yes. But being on facebook is really important to a lot of people I know and organizations they (and I) are part of. Many of them are performers known by everyone but their parents by their drag names or their Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence names. Many have transitioned in every way but the legal and so everyone knows them as John and not Jane. Many want to be in touch with their friends and chosen family without being harassed by their birth families or abusive exes.

The only cases I've seen of people using pseudonyms in harmful ways - like the guy who keeps signing up in order to be a total asshole to my friend who runs a secular grief support group - are also the ones where facebook seems to be like "Sorry can't do anything about it, have you tried just blocking JesusLovesUBurninHell Sinners?"
posted by rtha at 7:56 AM on June 29, 2015 [14 favorites]


Facebook's "real name" policy is very dangerous for a lot of people and an insult to many others. Other social network sites (*cough*G+*cough*) have managed to switch over to allow names with virtually no restrictions, strong sharing walls, and moderation tools: the world didn't end.

Related: Safety Net Project's (part of the National Network to End Domestic Violence) report "A Glimpse From the Field: How Abusers Are Misusing Technology" which talks about "real name" policies, their severe problems, and how Facebook fits in to that. (Related to *that*, but slightly click-bait-y, Engadget's slightly odd summary of that report.)
posted by introp at 7:56 AM on June 29, 2015 [7 favorites]


But, surely, in that case, Facebook wouldn't care what that "authentic name" was, would they?

The people who write Facebook's PR copy aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.
posted by kenko at 7:56 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


Good on the Radical Faeries, though.
posted by kenko at 7:57 AM on June 29, 2015


In Australia at least, any name you're not using to defraud people is a legal name.

In the unlikely event that I ever acquire a Facebook account, I will take great delight in joining the ranks of the legion that is Cranston Snord.
posted by flabdablet at 7:57 AM on June 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


This policy doesn't only cause problems for people who adopt new names, either. Accounts have been frozen belonging to people who use the name on their ID, the name on their birth certificate, the name their parents granted them at birth, because it didn't sound like a "real" name to some putz at Facebook HQ. It's just a clusterfuck all around.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:21 AM on June 29, 2015 [15 favorites]


Maybe your college friends know you by a short name, while your parents know you by a long name. Both are absolutely real.

I'm just not sure how that applies to Facebook. You're going to pick one name, aren't you?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:26 AM on June 29, 2015


Back in 2008, mefite Brandon Blatcher posted an askme after he and his wife both got kicked off facebook for using names that someone thought sounded fake. This is a problem that goes back a long time and it's past time that it stopped being such a problem.
posted by rtha at 8:28 AM on June 29, 2015 [6 favorites]


I've seen a lot of names on Facebook that you'd think would be automatically flagged. Hell I've seen "friends you may know" pop up with "Egg McMuffin" (complete with a pic of an Egg McMuffin), "Gay Bread," and "Ann ActualOwl." One of my friends went by something like Djkdjdkjkd dd for the longest time until someone report him.
posted by daninnj at 8:32 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


The video discussed here has a great point about 3:30. If we can handle The Edge and Puff Daddy we can accept the names of transgender and other LGBT people who use alternate names as well.

My life would arguably be easier if I didn't compartmentalize, if I got over myself and came out (again) after a decade of passive closet under my professional name via facebook. If I just washed my hands of the problem and let family and social networks rearrange themselves. But I do compartmentalize, and pseudonyms are a part of that.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:33 AM on June 29, 2015 [7 favorites]


Facebook is the only place in America were I consistently get to be a Stephen.
posted by srboisvert at 8:33 AM on June 29, 2015


There is also a universe of old ladies who are clearly fake (seems like high school or college kids behind them) but stick around for whatever reason.
posted by daninnj at 8:37 AM on June 29, 2015


I'm pretty sure that at least one motivation here is to force artists to use fanpages rather than personal pages for promoting themselves (and hence have to pay to actually reach their followers). At least judging by my feed, there are a lot of musicians and DJs being hit with this recently - people with 5000 friends on their personal page and a reliable way of getting in touch with a subset of hardcore fans, but who unfortunately wouldn't be recognised via their "real" names.
posted by iivix at 8:42 AM on June 29, 2015 [6 favorites]


I mean, clearly fake names fly under the radar if they don't have a lot of friends (no matter how many people they stalk or troll or whatever), but an artist whose very reputation is built on their stage name is somehow seen as untrustworthy for operating under that name. It's obviously not about preventing bad behaviour.
posted by iivix at 8:45 AM on June 29, 2015


Quora does this too. For some reason they rejected my actual name as being non-real, because "Dave" is of course ridiculous as a name. So now it's changed to "Dan", which is not my real name, but they seem happy that I changed it. The power of technology!
posted by vasi at 8:46 AM on June 29, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm pretty sure that at least one motivation here is to force artists to use fanpages rather than personal pages for promoting themselves (and hence have to pay to actually reach their followers).

Yup. Reminds me of when Wreckless Eric's account got terminated, even though hardly anybody (except, I suppose, his landlord, or his parents) knows him as Eric Goulden.
posted by monospace at 8:47 AM on June 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


That explains why I couldn't find him, despite going the whole wide world.
posted by Xavier Xavier at 8:56 AM on June 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


I recommend considering the abandonment of toxic platforms if you can afford to as it helps prevent the atrophy of face-to-face analogues and helps mitigate the exclusionary effects of policy like this.

For me, there has been more truth in moments of pseudonymity than in whole years of life.

Aside from that there's the whole uncomfortable question of what it means to organize on or rely on Facebook for socially important interactions when the fidelity of the medium is hitched to the profitability of the associated identities and communiqués.

I know some disagree, but I don't see the world losing much by leaving Facebook behind.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 9:05 AM on June 29, 2015 [9 favorites]


My life would arguably be easier if I didn't compartmentalize, if I got over myself and came out (again) after a decade of passive closet under my professional name via facebook. If I just washed my hands of the problem and let family and social networks rearrange themselves. But I do compartmentalize, and pseudonyms are a part of that.

Sorry if my comments sounded dismissive; I get that this is a huge problem for a great number of people for many many reasons -- I'm cis, but I pretty much gave up my Facebook account because they made it impossible for me to build a solid wall between my professional life, my friends, casual acquaintances, and family, and I want to be able to control what information and aspects I ghost to those groups.

I don't think Facebook cares about that; after all, I'm their product, and they want me nicely packaged for resale. My mildly messy life is not their problem, and the situation where I have stopped using their service is not any kind of incentive unless a lot of other people agree with me and also drop Facebook.

On the other hand, this is just an annoyance for me; it's not like Facebook is attacking my identity by denying me my name.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:13 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've never used anything but a fake name on Facebook, but then I've never used the Facebook platform for anything but API integration and testing; I suppose if I actually used it as intended they'd come after me and harm me and brutalize my tender portions or whatever it is they do to people who subject themselves to their rule.

FWIW Google Plus no longer has any restrictions on usernames.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:15 AM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


I know some disagree, but I don't see the world losing much by leaving Facebook behind.

It's tough, because there's a lock-in that has taken place over the past few years. If you don't use Facebook, at least in terms of having a stub account that allows you to join groups and things, then you lock yourself out of the Facebook-using world. (Which may not be a bad thing, but it's better when that's a conscious choice rather than forced upon you.)

At least some of my community organizations and social circles use Facebook for all their announcements and messaging, meaning that dropping Facebook makes it much harder to participate in those groups.
posted by theorique at 9:19 AM on June 29, 2015 [6 favorites]


Maybe it's just my personal hangup, but organizing on Facebook is a bit frustrating for me because I really don't understand who can see what on Facebook. Stuff seems to get pushed onto my profile and I have no idea where it came from or who can see it. I worry that a future code push will expose history, and I see few easy ways to privately follow a group. For example, it seems that the closest Radical Faerie circle has a Facebook page. Do I follow them, browse it in an anymous tab, "like" them or what?

What happens two or three years down the road if I figure out some of my current confusion and want to shift to a less gendered name?

And I feel particularly dumb in that I used to have a unix system administration certificate and I still can't figure out Facebook's permissions policy.

GenjiandProust: I wasn't responding to anything said here. For the last six months I've been wondering, "Why do I have a Facebook when I don't feel safe posting anything of importance to it?" Granted, my privacy is largely security through obscurity and a motivated stalker could easily dox or out me in multiple ways. But Facebook especially seems like a high-risk environment.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:30 AM on June 29, 2015 [9 favorites]


Some people have a name for when they are on the job? Sounds a bit Robin Askwith.
posted by biffa at 9:31 AM on June 29, 2015


Some people have a name for when they are on the job? Sounds a bit Robin Askwith.

That was phrased awkwardly. The story (as I understand it) is that her Facebook handle was the name she used professionally while employed Facebook, but not her name of legal documentation. This isn't just a transgender thing, but cis people are less likely to be challenged or get into trouble if they say, "I'm registered as ___, but call me ___."
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:41 AM on June 29, 2015


Accounts have been frozen belonging to people who use the name on their ID, the name on their birth certificate, the name their parents granted them at birth, because it didn't sound like a "real" name to some putz at Facebook HQ.

That's the problem with the policy, and it ought to end the debate. There's no need to delve into the dumb swamp of why people should be allowed to call themselves Dr CaptainMyCaptain because "no really, dude, that's how people know me." Facebook should abandon its real-name policy because it doesn't actually have a real-name policy. It cannot define what constitutes a real name, and it cannot enforce the policy with any kind of logic or consistency. It's just a couple of wasted salaries on employees who spend their work hours angering users for absolutely zero corporate benefit.

Personally I think a real-name policy is a neat aspiration. But there are two problems. The first, again, is that it's impossibly difficult to codify. The second is that, as you'll see if you take a look at the Facebook comments on the campaign page for any major politician, the policy doesn't create its intended effect. People will say just as much dumb, vile stuff under their real names. It turns out Penny Arcade was wrong: anonymity may be an exacerbating factor, but it's not constituent.
posted by cribcage at 9:51 AM on June 29, 2015 [11 favorites]


For example, I doubt that hyphenated names, anglicized names, English names adopted by people from East Asia, or standard nicknames would be challenged to the same degree.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:52 AM on June 29, 2015


Why is this a problem? Why do they care?

Advertisers pay more for user information if it has a real name attached.
posted by bradf at 10:35 AM on June 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


Lordy. I've used an extremely obviously fake name for FB forever, same as I've done with pretty much every other platform I've ever been on. Pseudonyms turn out to be way more natural than being stuck with your dumb stupid birth name you didn't even get to pick and that says nothing about you other than that your parents lacked a certain creative flair.

I did try starting an FB account with my real name, trying I guess to do compartmentalization similar to what CB talks about above, but there's like, nothing there. It turns out I don't really want to know what anyone at work thinks about anything outside of work, and when I have distant cousins who want to connect with me, I find I don't want to either censor myself, or worse explain myself. So my real name is a wasteland with like two "hello world" posts.

I basically just want a platform where I never have to hear "But I thought you were a ___" ever.
posted by mittens at 10:47 AM on June 29, 2015


Yeah, I've actually slowly drifted away from some activist stuff because it's all on facebook and I'm not willing to be. This year I almost didn't even get to the queer/trans march because not only was it on facebook but the public page was indexed weirdly.

I maintain that anonymity is vital for working class people - if you're a creative class person building your brand, having transgressive and edgy opinions may (or may not, honestly, but the odds are better) actually help you, but if you're a working class person, you can get fired for pictures showing you at a political rally or having a drink, or just for expressing opinions that make you seem like a discipline case.
posted by Frowner at 10:47 AM on June 29, 2015 [18 favorites]


mittens, Facebook doesn't really go looking for fake names. If someone reports you, they'll take you down.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:49 AM on June 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


So what kind of assholes are reporting these names? Does it have to be someone you're "friends" with? I know two friends of friends who have ridiculous names (and I've met them in person and that's not what they go by IRL).
posted by desjardins at 11:14 AM on June 29, 2015


No, it doesn't have to be someone you are connected to.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:17 AM on June 29, 2015


I'm out of the Facebook loop for the last few years but my friend tells me she thinks people get "reported" for using "fake" names, and that's often how they get kicked off the site.

The intersection of the fact that trans people often have changed their names, and the fact that there is so much transphobia, sets up a situation where trans people are even more likely to be un-personed by Facebook, because of intentional harassment/snitching/whatever by people taking advantage of this transphobic policy, or specifically targeting the person because they are trans.
posted by latkes at 11:35 AM on June 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


> "At least some of my community organizations and social circles use Facebook for all their announcements and messaging, meaning that dropping Facebook makes it much harder to participate in those groups."

> "Yeah, I've actually slowly drifted away from some activist stuff because it's all on facebook and I'm not willing to be. This year I almost didn't even get to the queer/trans march because not only was it on facebook but the public page was indexed weirdly. "

This should be tremendously concerning to any group who wishes to be inclusive. If Facebook is your groups only or primary advertising platform, recruiting platform or discussion platform it is quite likely missing unique voices. People who either choose to not be on Facebook, or people who have been booted from Facebook for having "funny" names and others.

I have not seen many progressive causes who's goals are aligned with Facebook's goals in any substantive way (usually quite the contrary) so it's vexing to see how much the premium of ubiquity seems to factor in decisions to use it.

We can fight Facebook on the real name policy and perhaps receive a less offensive co-optation of speech in return, maybe that's a good mitigation, but ultimately there will be other problematic issues with any singular corporate entity being the mediator of so much whether Facebook, Twitter or Google or whomever.

Unfortunately for those unaffected by the real name policy, it still seems rather easy to choose not to care. I've seen it first hand trying to dissuade a good friend from doing the large part of his (farther-left-than-me) organizing on Facebook and while he seems to understand, caring enough to change is slow to come due to the momentum of Facebook as a platform.

And he's not a "digital native". He actually has face-to-face organizing experience. How we help the younger generations avoid this trap as well is a significant problem for culture and technology. I wish I could start fixing it ten years ago.

We need to re-decentralize and we need to be mindful to not penalize outliers for refusing to use these platforms. In part, this requires us to be accepting of other media which may seem or actually be less fluent than the polished products we've come to expect.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 11:44 AM on June 29, 2015 [7 favorites]


I wonder if Facebook makes famous movie-star types use their real names. Reminds me of the way the U.S. military insisted on referring to Marilyn Monroe.
posted by JanetLand at 12:05 PM on June 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


FWIW, about a third of the people I know on FB don't use their real names. Most of those use some statement-making variant (one uses a more traditional transliteration from Gaelic of his family name than he was born into, another a self-mocking version of his last name); others just mask their name. (I know two women who use a form of their first and middle names as first and last name. In neither case was the adopted first name one that anyone knew them by. Another uses a pen name for most of her activity, which can be linked to wikipedia pages about her and which would tie her to the separate account she maintains under her real name. one guy I know just jumbled up the syllables to make a plausible SFnal-sounding name.)

I suppose all those people could be narc'd. But FB doesn't seem to have been bright enough to kick them off for faking yet.

I mean, other than denying implausible names, and assuming you've had the basic smarts to not give them any verifiable personal information (i know they've got none on me, and I use my real name), how could they possibly know you're not using your "legal name"? I guess the answer is probably alleged to be somewhere in their policies or rationales, but the fact is they're really just guessing.

I have to wonder if the people behind this policy didn't get phone-pranked a lot at some point, and this is their mode of payback.
posted by lodurr at 12:26 PM on June 29, 2015


I mean, other than denying implausible names, and assuming you've had the basic smarts to not give them any verifiable personal information (i know they've got none on me, and I use my real name), how could they possibly know you're not using your "legal name"?

They ask for photocopies of legal identification, and often close people's accounts if they can't provide ID that matches their names on the site.
posted by jaguar at 12:32 PM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


I mean, they don't check ID when you sign up, but if they challenge you on whether you're using your legal name, then yes, they do require verifiable personal information.
posted by jaguar at 12:32 PM on June 29, 2015


They ask for photocopies of legal identification...

Why in the world would they think it's OK to do that? Why in the world would people think it's ok for them to to do that? Would you provide that to any other website?

It boggles the mind.

I'm not challenging what you're telling me or questioning that people do it. it's just...ugh.
posted by lodurr at 12:48 PM on June 29, 2015 [4 favorites]


They are literally just guessing, which is the point. If the real-name policy were an actual thing, then Facebook would automatically screen for things like firstname:Batman, or fullname:DarthVader. For that matter, if the policy were serious then they would also extend it to other "About Me" variables—like screening out people who claim to be Jedi Knights or educated at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Instead it is literally just, "We have this policy that allows users to report non–real-looking names, at which point our staff will exercise judgment based on no discernible criteria and maybe suspend your account." That kind of squishy, abstract policy is totally fine for an informal knitting club or maybe your local gaming store, but it is embarrassing for a multibillion-dollar corporation traded on NASDAQ.

If people want to tie this to progressive causes, so be it. Maybe that's politically smart, given the climate. But I think there's a more fundamental objection that a real-name policy doesn't actually exist—and probably can't; and wouldn't create its intended effect anyway—so quit fucking around with people's accounts.
posted by cribcage at 12:50 PM on June 29, 2015 [6 favorites]


This always seemed to me to be a case of the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. On one hand Facebook runs a tor node and a tor hidden service so people can access it discreetly. They also allow gpg integration with their mail system. And then, on the other hand, they go out and make this real name "policy". It's like they want to promote privacy and not promote it at the same time.
posted by I-baLL at 12:51 PM on June 29, 2015


If the real-name policy were an actual thing, then Facebook would automatically screen for things like firstname:Batman

Sucks to be this guy.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:00 PM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


"On one hand Facebook runs a tor node and a tor hidden service so people can access it discreetly. They also allow gpg integration with their mail system."

These features don't really impair Facebook much. They may reduce Facebook's ability to trace you off-site, if you use Tor correctly at least.

By the time you log in, regardless of your IP, you've been contextualized in a social graph and so are your subsequent actions and page impressions. This is the moneymaker. These features do however impair third parties (NSA, GCHQ, China, et al) from scavenging details of the user's social graph which makes the data more scarce and valuable.

These changes are good things and beneficial to users but I don't see them at odds with Facebook's goals necessarily (they do nothing to anonymize you to Facebook) and even if they are at odds increasing user retention via whatever the privacy/anonymity/pseudonymity version of greenwashing is (nymwashing? greywashing?) would likely be well worth it.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 1:10 PM on June 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


From what I've read on the policy, it seems to be entirely complaint driven, which means that it can be manipulated by harassers and trolls.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:16 PM on June 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


Ironically, a test account I created when doing some work with the Facebook API, which even has a surname that starts with "Fake" is still up and hasn't gotten a single complaint.
posted by ymgve at 2:18 PM on June 29, 2015


I wonder if Facebook makes famous movie-star types use their real names.

Generally, yes, for personal accounts. They are welcome to pay to promote themselves from a Page (rather than Profile) under whatever damn name they please, though, same as everyone else. As a business model it makes sense - allow people to be 'themselves' for free (or well, in return for being monetised by way of advertisers) and then allow them to promote their public performer persona for a fee. It completely breaks down when you start categorising someone's authentic self as a performer identity because it doesn't match what's on their passport or whatever. There is no good way of enforcing the policy, because the sort of neat cleave between the two types of identity referenced doesn't actually exist for a lot of people.
posted by Dysk at 1:32 AM on June 30, 2015


I just left FB because of this very issue. I used my firstname but found a workaround to not have my surname on there. It was like that for years, I had hundreds of friends I interacted with, I ran a FB Page for my business... and then they caught up with me and insisted I add the surname and send them scans of ID proving my proper name.

Not wanting to do that, I created a fake account, added no friends, passed the FB Page/Business to that account, and deleted the account I'd used for so long.

For years, they sold showed me relevant ads and were able to monetize my presence. Now, they got nothing.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:41 AM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Matt Oneiros, good god, yes, yes. And because they don't anonymize you to Facebook, they won't anonymize you to anybody Facebook wants to give data to. So it was all really just a big PR move. Why didn't people get that?
posted by lodurr at 5:02 AM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


For years, they sold showed me relevant ads and were able to monetize my presence. Now, they got nothing.

My first reaction to this is that for any of us who do this, or with regard to whom this is true, there are tens of thousands to whom it doesn't apply. So the cost to them on this dimension is pretty small.

But this got me thinking. I do get (at a superficial level of understanding) that they think they get additional value from having people clearly and definitively identified. But are they getting enough to make it worth the effort? Because you raise an excellent point: for their purposes, they already knew who you "really" were. You were that guy they sold stuff to. Knowing your name might actually make you less valuable, since the "you" they know from their algorithms is the you that's defined by your actions on Facebook. Add in the data from outside, where you might well do a buttload of things that aren't related, and it might make you less-likely to convert on any given promo.

But then I thought some more, and I remembered that the real purpose of the 'real name' initiative is nothing at all to do with conversion or targeting and everything to do with window-dressing pretense to fostering civility.
posted by lodurr at 5:10 AM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Knowing your real name makes their data much, much more valuable. They can tie it in / sell it to real-world databases that are keyed to your real name.
posted by introp at 8:12 AM on June 30, 2015


I understand that's the theory. But is the software really there to exploit it? And in the absence of that software, might there not be diminishing (or even negative) returns, past a certain amount of knowledge.

(Not accounting for the actual sale of data, which is predicated on perceived value and so more or less unrelated to what data actually says.)
posted by lodurr at 8:40 AM on June 30, 2015


The "real name is good for business" argument ignores the fact that many of us do more business under adopted names rather than legal ones. I quietly used an adopted name for almost a decade after I met my partner. I eventually changed my birth certificate, but I got more mail, and had more publications under my adopted name than my birth name.

And from a marketing standpoint, using a preferred name seems obvious.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:33 AM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Actually, now that I think about it, I never used my original first name in school or professionally. None of the conversations about my preference took more than a minute.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:56 AM on June 30, 2015


reminds me of an artist I used to work with. She had the same first name as one of our principals. so rather than just clarify, she volunteered to use a nickname that she'd used in high school. except NOBODY else called her that anymore. it's a small town, and she'd spent a lot of time freelancing, and pretty much knew every art director in town, but for literally years nobody seemed to know she worked for us because we always called her by that nickname.

I can't say how much, but I think that may well have hurt her professionally when she inevitably* got laid off.

Facebook makes me think of that. I'll refer to people by name and my wife will get confused. "You know, [facebook name]." Light dawns.

Translate to a professional connection: People can literally be unaware of the connection. Case in point, the woman I mentioned earlier who has distinct personal profiles under her real and pen names. She makes no effort to alter her writing style or interests from one to the other; nevertheless there are people who get confused if someone addresses 'sally' as 'sarah.' If she were more active as a writer, it might hurt her.

--
*We were in advertising. Layoffs are a fact of life and more or less totally irrelevant to your actual skill or productivity.
posted by lodurr at 10:13 AM on June 30, 2015


It's just a couple of wasted salaries on employees who spend their work hours angering users for absolutely zero corporate benefit.

The article i used to always link to seems to have disappeared, but it was based on a couple interviews from facebook representatives about their "real name economy"(the only direct google hit for that is unrelated, and just happens to use the same phrase) and how they were able to charge a premium to advertisers because they had not only all this info about you, but what was promised to be your real name.

Why in the world would they think it's OK to do that? Why in the world would people think it's ok for them to to do that? Would you provide that to any other website?

They're so entitled and smug about it too. One of my friends got an insane response from them that was essentially a CorporateSpeak rant about how providing them with a fake ID was a serious crime and they'd report you to the police and stuff.

Um, no? Fuck off maybe? This isn't a bar, and you're not using my ID to verify anything that matters.

I know several people who have(successfully) made fake IDs, some fake enough to be obviously blatantly fake that said "novelty" or something somewhere on them and sucessfully used them to unlock accounts.

I also know someone who got their account locked for having an ø in their name, and facebook refused to unlock it unless they switched to a regular o.


I really really hope they eventually get shamed out of doing this. One of the things i miss most from the previous generation of social networking(I.E. myspace) was the fact that you didn't have to use a real name. You could just tell people who you actually wanted to connect with "oh yea i'm darth hater on there" or whatever. Friends of friends could find you by recognizing your photos(or not!).

Their similar but less enforced rule about your profile picture HAVING to be a real picture of you/a person is also stupid for most of the same reasons.

I love to make fun of i-dont-own-a-television style rants about how facebook is some toxic poison to social interaction and bla bla bla, but it's getting harder and harder to do it with any enthusiasm when they're this tirelessly shitty and inconsistent.
posted by emptythought at 6:24 PM on June 30, 2015


Zuckerberg blathering
posted by gingerbeer at 4:39 AM on July 1, 2015


I love to make fun of i-dont-own-a-television style rants about how facebook is some toxic poison to social interaction and bla bla bla

I don't own a television, which is possibly why it's so readily apparent to me that Facebook and its ilk are indeed toxic to social interaction.

Crystal meth also has its upside. That doesn't make building your life around it a good idea.
posted by flabdablet at 5:33 AM on July 1, 2015


... when they're this tirelessly shitty and inconsistent.

Well they've always been that. it's part of their culture.

as for toxicity...i agree that's a really tired critique, but it is at least possible that the net effect is negative. The fundamental similarity between Facebook's valuation and the derivatives bubble is that they're both based on imaginary things. Facebook's "product" is a targetable network; how much "real" value is realized off that? I doubt anyone really knows.
posted by lodurr at 6:36 AM on July 1, 2015


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