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Tag: real names

  • The Avatar Family Runs Afoul of Facebook’s Real Name Policy

    The Avatar Family Runs Afoul of Facebook’s Real Name Policy

    An avatar is an icon used to represent someone online. It’s also an “epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver,” or so I’m told. I don’t know. It’s no Titanic.

    Turns out, it’s also the real last name of an Arizona couple – Boa and Audry Avatar.

    But Facebook took issue with it, as it sometimes does, and banned the Avatars for violating its real name policy.

    We’ve talked before about Facebook’s real name policy and how it’s not really that great for some in the community. Basically, Facebook forces users to use the name they would find on official documents – IDs, paycheck stubs, bills, bank cards, etc. The list of acceptable identification forms is long, but still pretty stuffy. The bottom line is that Facebook wants your real name. It’s better for data tracking. It’s better for ad targeting.

    The company has a history of banning people for using assumed names. And sometimes, like the case of the Avatars (and many Native Americans), Facebook screws up and thinks someone’s real name is actually a fake name.

    “I’m not blue, so, and I’m not gigantic,” Audry Avatar told KTVK. She was prevented from changing her maiden name to her married name.

    Here’s Facebook’s response to the matter:

    We are committed to ensuring that all members of the Facebook community can use the names that they use in real life. Having people use their authentic names makes them more accountable, and also helps us root out accounts created for malicious purposes, like harassment, fraud, impersonation and hate speech. Over the last several months, we’ve made some significant improvements in the implementation of this standard, including enhancing the overall experience and expanding the options available for verifying an authentic name. We have more work to do, and our teams will continue to prioritize these improvements.

    Of course, the Avatar family will probably get this straightened out – especially now. But this just highlights another inherent problem with Facebook’s policy. Mark Zuckerberg says the policy helps keep people safe.

    But many transgender feel Facebook’s real name policy is discriminatory and ultimately unsafe. People who are victims of online abuse have also denounced Facebook’s policy, saying pseudonyms let them hide from trolls. Domestic violence victims say the same thing. Facebook has even faced lawsuits from Native American activists over the policy.

    Last month, a German regulator said that Facebook must allow fake names, and forcing real names violates privacy rights.

  • Facebook Must Allow Fake Names, Says German Regulator

    Facebook’s real name policy, which prevents people from using the service with pseudonyms, has pissed off a lot of people – especially as of late. Facebook’s policy has drawn the ire of the transgender community, domestic violence victim, privacy advocates, and Native American groups. But in the States, the policy hasn’t gained any regulatory attention.

    Not the case overseas, where German regulators have struck the policy down.

    The Hamburg data protection authority has ruled that Facebook cannot force users to use their real names, and they also cannot require users to produce an official ID in order to access their accounts.

    From Reuters:

    A woman had complained to the Hamburg watchdog after Facebook blocked her account for using a pseudonym, requested a copy of her ID and unilaterally changed her username into her real name.

     

    The Hamburg Data Protection Authority said the woman did not want to use her real name to avoid being contacted through it for business matters.

     

    Forcing users to stick to their real names violated their privacy rights, it said.

    Facebook’s response is that the policy actually protects user safety and privacy – plus German regulations shouldn’t affect it as its European headquarters is located in Ireland. This is an argument we’ve heard from Facebook on many occasions.

    Not only that, but Facebook says that in the past, German courts have sided with it on this matter.

    And Facebook’s not wrong there. Years ago, Facebook won a battle over its real name policy. In December of 2012, German data protection office Unabhaengiges Landeszentrum fuer Datenschutz (ULD) issued a ruling against Facebook’s real names policy, claiming that it infringed upon citizen’s rights to free speech and anonymity online. Facebook appealing the ruling, and a few months later an administrative court approved Facebook’s request to suspend the ruling. The reason? Facebook was only beholden to Irish data protection laws, since their European offices are located there.

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently spoke out about the policy.

    “It helps keep people safe,” he said in a Q&A session. “We know that people are much less likely to try to act abusively towards other members of our community when they’re using their real names. There are plenty of cases — for example, a woman leaving an abusive relationship and trying to avoid her violent ex-husband — where preventing the ex-husband from creating profiles with fake names and harassing her is important. As long as he’s using his real name, she can easily block him.”

    “Second, real names help make the service easier to use. People use Facebook to look up friends and people they meet all the time. This is easy because you can just type their name into search and find them. This becomes much harder if people don’t use their real names.”

  • Facebook’s Real Name Policy Compelled a Woman to Change Her Name to Jemmaroid Von Laalaa

    Facebook’s “real name policy”, as it’s been called, is frustrating to a lot of people. Facebook has long required its users to use their real names on the site, and this has been controversial for many years – but a few recent incidents have served to shine a brighter light on things.

    Now we’ve reached the point where people are legally changing their names in order to be able to use Facebook.

    A 30-year-old holistic therapist, originally Jemma Rogers, has changed her name to Jemmaroid Von Laalaa in an effort to regain control over her Facebook account.

    According to Rogers Von Laalaa, she’d been using the pseudonym for some time – as a way to avoid unwanted attention on the site – before Facebook suspended her account. Now, she says, the process of getting back in has proved tedious and futile.

    “The name you use should be your authentic identity; as your friends call you in real life and as our acceptable identification forms would show,” says Facebook of its real name policy. The company will often force users to provide proof in order to regain control of suspended accounts.

    Apparently, Von Laalaa took drastic measures. And so far, even those haven’t worked.

    “I know I’ve been a completely moron, but Facebook are being ridiculous. I’ve been locked out of my account for five weeks now and have lost all of my photos, messages and precious memories,” Von Laalaa told the Telegraph. “I can’t believe I’m stuck with this stupid name and I still can’t get into my Facebook.”

    “Facebook is a community where people use their authentic identities. We require people to provide the name they use in real life; that way, you always know who you’re connecting with. This helps keep our community safe,” says Facebook.

    The Transgender community is one that feels Facebook’s real name policy is discriminatory and ultimately unsafe, and have been very vocal about it. People who are victims of online abuse have also denounced Facebook’s policy, saying pseudonyms let them hide from trolls. Domestic violence victims say the same thing. Facebook has even faced lawsuits from Native American activists over the policy.

    Mark Zuckerberg recently addressed the backlash, saying the policy actually helps to keep people safe.

    “It helps keep people safe. We know that people are much less likely to try to act abusively towards other members of our community when they’re using their real names. There are plenty of cases — for example, a woman leaving an abusive relationship and trying to avoid her violent ex-husband — where preventing the ex-husband from creating profiles with fake names and harassing her is important. As long as he’s using his real name, she can easily block him,” he said.

    “Second, real names help make the service easier to use. People use Facebook to look up friends and people they meet all the time. This is easy because you can just type their name into search and find them. This becomes much harder if people don’t use their real names.”

    The service is much harder to use when you’re locked out, however.

  • Facebook’s Real Name Policy Keeps People Safe, Says Zuckerberg

    Facebook, a longtime supporter of LGBT issues, has come under fire in recent months for a policy that, according to those in the transgender community, is incredibly harmful.

    Facebook requires its users to use their real names on the site. This “real name policy” has been controversial for many years, but an extra bright light has been blasted on it as of late, in the context of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in favor of marriage equality.

    “Facebook is a community where people use their authentic identities. We require people to provide the name they use in real life; that way, you always know who you’re connecting with. This helps keep our community safe,” the company says of its policy. “The name you use should be your authentic identity; as your friends call you in real life and as our acceptable identification forms would show.”

    Basically, Facebook forces users to use the name they would find on official documents – IDs, paycheck stubs, bills, bank cards, etc. The list of acceptable identification forms is long, but still pretty stuffy.

    The bottom line is that Facebook wants your real name. It’s better for data tracking. It’s better for ad targeting.

    What it’s not better for, according to some activists, is the transgender community.

    Just days after same-sex marriage was legalized across America, protests erupted at the San Francisco Pride Parade. Protestors carried signs that read “Shame on Facebook” and “My Name Is”.

    “We didn’t want to target pride or anything like that but we just wanted to make Facebook feel a little bit unwelcome and realize that this is an issue that is not going away until they fix it,” Lil Miss Hot Mess, a San Francisco drag queen, told Silicon Beat.

    Around the same time, a former Facebook employee penned a lengthy post called “My name is only real enough to work at Facebook, not to use on the site”

    “I always knew this day would come. The day that Facebook decided my name was not real enough and summarily cut me off from my friends, family and peers and left me with the stark choice between using my legal name or using a name people would know me by. With spectacular timing, it happened while I was at trans pride and on the day the Supreme Court made same sex marriage legal in the US,” she says.

    “Names aren’t that simple and the reasons people use names are also not that simple. It’s been covered a thousand times before. We use names that don’t match our ID on Facebook for safety, or because we’re trans, or because we’re just straight up not known by our legal names.”

    The woman, who goes by Zip, says she was the one who initiated Facebook’s custom gender feature. Earlier this year, Facebook began offering infinite gender options for users to list on their profiles.

    “Facebook needs to do better than this. Technology is not neutral, and a technology that a billion people use to communicate has the power to warp and change reality around itself. Adding custom gender was a small change, yet it hit the front page of CNN, angered Fox News and got its own segment on The Daily Show. It encouraged other large sites such as Google Plus and OKCupid to handle nonbinary gender too. It exposed the world to the notion that gender might not be a binary. That’s profound. It’s time for Facebook to step up and do the same thing for names,” she says.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    For members of the transgender community, Facebook’s real name policy is a threat to their safety.

    During a recent Q&A session on Facebook, someone asked Mark Zuckerberg about this very issue:

    Hi Mark, you made a tool to let everyone put rainbow flags over their profile pictures, but you also insist on having people use their real names on Facebook. Many people in the trans community consider this discriminatory and even argue it puts their lives at risk. Are you going to end the practice?

    This is an important question. Real names are an important part of how our community works for a couple of reasons.

    First, it helps keep people safe. We know that people are much less likely to try to act abusively towards other members of our community when they’re using their real names. There are plenty of cases — for example, a woman leaving an abusive relationship and trying to avoid her violent ex-husband — where preventing the ex-husband from creating profiles with fake names and harassing her is important. As long as he’s using his real name, she can easily block him.

    Second, real names help make the service easier to use. People use Facebook to look up friends and people they meet all the time. This is easy because you can just type their name into search and find them. This becomes much harder if people don’t use their real names.

    That said, there is some confusion about what our policy actually is. Real name does not mean your legal name. Your real name is whatever you go by and what your friends call you. If your friends all call you by a nickname and you want to use that name on Facebook, you should be able to do that. In this way, we should be able to support everyone using their own real names, including everyone in the transgender community. We are working on better and more ways for people to show us what their real name is so we can both keep this policy which protects so many people in our community while also serving the transgender community.

    Not exactly a punt, but a typical “we’re working to find better ways to address this” response.

    It’s not just transgender who feel Facebook’s real name policy is discriminatory and ultimately unsafe. People who are victims of online abuse have denounced Facebook’s policy, saying pseudonyms let them hide from trolls. Domestic violence victims say the same thing. Facebook has even faced lawsuits from Native American activists over the policy.

    As mentioned before – this has been an issue for a long time. But now, as millions of millions of people, with the help of Facebook, rainbow their profile pictures – the real name policy and the effect it has on so many people seems that much more disjointed from a company that prides itself on fighting for LGBT rights.

    Image via

  • Google Abandons Real Name Policy for Google+, Apologizes for the Confusion

    After years of complaints from users, Google has finally caved and dropped the real name policy that governed Google+, which in turn affected many other Google entities.

    In an apologetic post, Google admits that their name policy has “been unclear” and that it has led to “unnecessary difficult experiences for some.”

    “For this we apologize, and we hope that today’s change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be,” says Google.

    Google+ was built on a foundation of no anonymity, as users were required to use their real names when setting up a profile. As Google began to integrate Google+ into more of its properties (like YouTube, Google Play, and more), the real name policy began to affect users all across the board.

    “This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names,” admits Google.

    And throughout the whole thing, privacy advocates argued that point – sometimes, some people need to use a pseudonym.

    Though Google relaxed this policy some as of late, they’re now taking the final action to eliminate the requirement altogether.

    “Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use,” they say.

    Just three months ago Vic Gundotra, the main behind Google+, abruptly announced that he was leaving the company. Just as reports have been flying since the launch of Google+, people once again proclaimed the social network’s imminent death. Google promised that Gundotra’s departure would have absolutely no impact on Google+ and its operations – but this policy shift has to be seen as an attempt to win back or simply win users who felt iffy about being forced into so much notoriety.

  • Facebook Stops That Weird “Is This Your Friend’s Real Name” Survey

    It’s not likely that you’ll receive a message from Facebook asking you to rat on one of your friends, as the company has confirmed that a recent test involving users’ real names has been completed.

    Last week, Facebook began sending survey questions to a small percentage of users. The prompt read “Help us make Facebook better” and asked users “is this your friend’s real name?” Below, an image of the friend in question appeared next to a few choices including “yes,” “no,” and “I don’t want to answer.”

    Facebook confirmed that they were just testing this survey and that they weren’t trying to “get anyone in trouble,” but it definitely came off as Facebook asking users to snitch on their friends.

    No matter, as it’s now over. According to Facebook:

    This was a limited survey we have already concluded. We are always looking to gauge how people use Facebook and represent themselves to better design our product and systems. We analysed these surveys only using aggregate data and responses had zero impact on any user’s account.

    Furthermore:

    We are still analyzing the results. And no, we do not have any plans at the moment to roll out the test more broadly, but are always looking at ways to keep our users and their data safe.

    Cool. But why was Facebook asking about people’s real names anyway?

    You might not even realize it, but using a fake name, nickname, or alias is forbidden by Facebook guidelines. Although tons of people use Facebook and don’t provide the exact name on their birth certificates, Facebook says that they are a “community where people use their real identities.”

    “We require everyone to provide their real names, so you always know who you’re connecting with,” says the company.

    “When everyone uses their real first and last names, people can know who they’re connecting with. This helps keep our community safe. We take the safety of our community very seriously. That’s why we remove fake accounts from the site as we find them.”

    We’ve seen examples in recent weeks of mass crackdowns on accounts with false names. Though this most recent survey question shouldn’t shock any Facebook user, it was kind of an odd one. Nobody likes to feel like a narc.