Will Real Name Policies Improve Comments? 264
TechCrunch has a story about the recent trend of websites wanting users to use their real names in an attempt to make comments better. The story points out that the practice didn't work in South Korea. From the article: "...In 2007, South Korea temporarily mandated that all websites with over 100,000 viewers require real names, but scrapped it after it was found to be ineffective at cleaning up abusive and malicious comments (the policy reduced unwanted comments by an estimated .09%). We don’t know how this hidden gem of evidence skipped the national debate on real identities, but it’s an important lesson for YouTube, Facebook and Google, who have assumed that fear of judgement will change online behavior for the better."
Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:4, Interesting)
So, no.
Link to the TechCrunch article (Score:5, Interesting)
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/ [techcrunch.com]
Sort of works on Facebook, but: (Score:4, Interesting)
1) You have a real incentive of actually signing up with your real name because otherwise your friends won't find you.
2) Your friends can see what you write.
This creates a (somewhat) self-regulated comment environment. People still post dumb stuff on Facebook because they're dumb, but at least you get rid of most trolls, one-liner thumb seekers and Justin Bieber haters that haunt for instance Youtube.
re important lesson for YouTube, Facebook, Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Having subscribers' and posters' real names would vastly increase the value of their web analytics, and allow them to sell qualified leads to marketers ("all these email addresses are for people who proactively viewed at least one SUV product video within the last two weeks"). That's what those guys care about, not comment quality.
Re:John Smith (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of reasons to be concerned with people's (poor, inappropriate) judgement.
A poster may have perfectly good reasons to be anonymous: they may be subject to various kinds of active hunting, from spouses to creeps to national agencies; there are people who may have made mistakes (or not), have been through the legal system, but have been pilloried on some list somewhere; they may be activists of one sort or another, engaged in illegal activities (and don't even try to tell me that all laws are good just because they are laws... it's just too easy to take your wet-noodle premise and slap you silly with it); there is strong tendency to "attack the messenger" rather than try to respond to the message, and anonymity makes that an empty exercise... it neither hurts the poster or benefits the attacker; anonymity means no one gets to scrape you from some forum and "market" to you (it may not be evil but it surely is annoying.) And so on.
Yes, real name policies let the lowlives run essentially free. But that's what moderation is for, and that's where the most effective energy can be applied. The one thing slashdot does really wrong is start anonymous comments at zero. They should start at one, just like any other comment, and go down only when they're obviously of lower quality. It's a form of prejudice, nothing more. A counter argument is that it is statistically justified, but that's an over-democratic solution that harms the legitimate posters at the same time it addresses whatever problem there is. It's like racial profiling: if most of the crime in an area is from blacks, and then the police start pulling people over because they're black, we have a problem. With an anon post, when you droprate the post because it's anon, you've essentially done the same thing, except the problem area isn't arbitrary search, it is the chilling of speech (because low scores tend to make posts less visible.)
In the end, real name policies are a bad idea, the only people who really benefit from them are corporations.
Let's name the subjects: (Score:3, Interesting)
Political views. Eample: remember back in '02 when all those folks who were against invading Iraq had their property vandalized because they "didn't support the troops and hated America"? Turns out those people who "hated America and the troops" were right.
Religion. Example: I live in the Bible Belt. If it were known that I am an atheist, I would have some serious problems with my neighbors. Like anonymous vandalism.
sexual orientation. there are folks who have a severe prejudice against homosexuals and a completely asinine hatred for those poor souls who are born with ambiguous sex. To post one's true orientation or birth defect leads to quite a bit of hatred and harassment from very ignorant people.
Metal illness/substance abuse. Folks with those issues really have to hide because of ignorance, prejudice and just the lack of compassion and understanding of people.
Unfortunately there are a lot of jerks out there who will so some horrible things to you if they don't like what you say. But the thing is, some things really need to be said. If folks kept quiet about racism, god knows what our society would be like. But some very brave people risked and in many cases lost their lives to speak up.
Anonymity helps folks who are afraid to step in and at the very least say, "I am out there and I agree. I can at least maybe vote or do something behind the scene to help make a change."
An Anonymous Poster.
Re:won't make a difference (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly, I have argued something similar [slashdot.org] a few days ago. Basically, people are rude on the internet not because of anonymity, but because you can't punch them in the face.