Re "The Real Name Fallacy"

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Mary Shaw <mary.shaw () gmail com>
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 10:12 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] "The Real Name Fallacy"
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>


Reaching for "real names" as the solution to this social problem confuses
mechanism with principle.  I believe the principle we're after is that
people should accept responsibility for their actions, and in particular
that (a) the author of a statement can be found again and (b) if there are
consequences from online actions, they will fall upon the actor.

I believe that the principle we're after is that authors should take (and
keep) responsibility for their statements.  A "Real Name" rule attempts to
accomplish that by associating writings with a unique actual person.

The first problem is that it doesn't work: Names are not unique. Unusual
real names can fail the Real Name filter. Authors who consistently write
under pen names are sometimes not recognized by their real names. People
(especially women using two surnames) may use different names personally
and professionally. And so on.

The second problem is that insisting that an actual person have only one
online identity denies us the capability of the technology. I have two
principal meat-space personas (plus a couple of minor ones). Most IP
readers know me through my technical persona. In Pittsburgh, I'm probably
better-known in my bicycle/trail-developer persona.  It's sometimes
socially awkward when these cross over in real life.  I can report that in
Facebook it's a bit chaotic, because AFIK Facebook doesn't consider which
of my friends know me in which role -- at minimum, they probably get stuff
from my feed that they don't care about.  For all I know, this can result
in loss of credibility.  Note that I'm not trying to be anonymous -- just
to separate activities in different communities.  This is harder to do
under an online real-name discipline than in the Real World, where physical
location does a pretty decent job of separation.

Now, the usual objection to allowing people to have multiple online
identities it that they can do mischief.  Much (most?) of that mischief
arises from the ability to duck responsibility for online writings and
actions.  So, back the the principle: Instead of trying to make Real Names
do something they can't, why aren't we looking for ways to establish online
identities to which actions and statements can be attributed?  We could
even continue to allow anonymous statements as long as they are recognized
as having low credibility because of the anonymity.

In software engineering we describe this as confusing specification with
implementation -- confusing what should be done with how it should be done.

Mary

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 2:16 PM, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 12:53 PM
Subject: [ NNSquad ] "The Real Name Fallacy"
To: <nnsquad () nnsquad org>




"The Real Name Fallacy"



https://blog.coralproject.net/the-real-name-fallacy/



        People often say that online behavior would improve if every

        comment system forced people to use their real names. It

        sounds like it should be true - surely nobody would say mean

        things if they faced consequences for their actions?  Yet the

        balance of experimental evidence over the past thirty years

        suggests that this is not the case. Not only would removing

        anonymity fail to consistently improve online community

        behavior - forcing real names in online communities could also

        increase discrimination and worsen harassment.  We need to

        change our entire approach to the question. Our concerns about

        anonymity are overly-simplistic; system design can't solve

        social problems without actual social change.



 - - -



--Lauren--

REPORT Fake News Here! - https://factsquad.com

CRUSHING the Internet Liars - https://vortex.com/crush-net-liars


















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