Trend to real names
What is the advantage?
I was thinking about is that trend to force users to use their real names. Facebook is doing it for a long time and now Google+ is too.
Just yesterday I was reading a feminists blog post Anonymous oder Susimaus – Geschlecht im Internet (I'm sorry it's in German, you could try the Google translation if you do not understand German) and they link to a study where Female-Name Chat Users Get 25 Times More Malicious Messages. Obviously you could just say that they should just grow a thicker skin, but that seems to me like the wrong approach.
In the comments you can find an interesting reading about the forced public gender in your Google+ profile by Randall Munroe, yes the guy who is doing XKCD.
The problem I have with real names is that I don't understand the advantage of using the real name on the Internet. I can write a hell of a long list with disadvantages ...
- Cyberstalking which can lead to stalking if they know your real name
- Not getting the job you wanted because of some stupid picture where you're drunk on it.
- Not getting a promotion because you have some opposed opinion about some topic your boss is passionate about.
- Your new girlfriend gets angry because she finds your name on some old flirt page.
- You grow up and change your mind about some topic but google only shows how stupid you were "then".
- It leads to conformist behavior, because only a few people have the guts to really say everything they think under their real name.
- and so on, and so forth ...
... but my list with advantages is mostly just:
- Your old and new friends can find you more easily.
- Your word has more weight compared to someones who uses a nickname when strangers read it.
Nr. 1 is just a good thing if you want them to find you and nr. 2 is only a real point if you actually care for how strangers on the internet think about what you write.
I'd love to hear some more advantages, but real ones which you can not archive with help of a nickname.
Facebook and Google+ force you
Comments
I would think getting a job or promotion doesnt comes down to what a person writes in a forum, or if your opinions are the same as the boss. For getting a promotion they might though, but writing nothing isn't going to get you a promotion either. The real disadvantage i agree with, is that the internet does not forget. If you change your mind about something, your stupid long rant about something ,you no longer stand for, is going to come up when they google your name and they might get a very weird picture of who you are. That is the only valid argument i see. The 2 advantages carries zero weight also. If you are good at expressing yourself and thoughtfull, i am pretty sure it could be a huge advantage to getting a job or promotion, even if your opinions aren't the same as your boss.
Also that conformist thing. If writing "i am going to rape you till you change your mind, stupid facking cunt. I am going to put my huge D'ck inside of your feminist possy and make you beg for my male dominance" is the kind of comments people refrain from when writing under their real name. I for one would welcome that.
Oh I would say I disagree on "not getting a job", otherwise what is all the fuzz about it? http://www.google.com/search?q=job+candidates+facebook
And not writing about my sexual preferences or how much I drank yesterday again will not get mit a promotion? What kind of a argument is that?
On the conformist topic, think you are born in a christian house and you live in a christian community. Then one day you read on the net about atheist and you find yourself agreeing with their arguments. You simply can not just go and blog about it under your name, the community would hang you and your parents would disinherit you and claim that they have no son anymore.
Therefore you just don't say don't express your feelings about it and like that it's for other people to, nobody in your community says something and everything goes on like it did before without improvements.
But still, where are the arguments for using real names? The "people will harass each other less often" feels kind of funny because it's like "lets mount surveillance cameras all over the place they will prevent crimes", which obviously doesn't work at all:
And using real names has real consequences, not only for the harasser but especially for the harassed.