The Single Vigilante Behind Facebook's 'Real Name' Crackdown 305
Molly McHugh sends this story from Daily Dot:
When Facebook issued an apology this week for suspending user accounts that had what it alleged to be fake names, it pinned the whole debacle on one person. This "individual," Facebook reasoned, sewed confusion into its flawed reporting system—intended to protect against bullying and online abuse. Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox explains that Facebook was caught “off guard” by a lone actor who reported “several hundred” accounts as fake. According to our source, who claims to have spent "hours and hours" systematically reporting Facebook users from the drag community and beyond, thousands of accounts were suspended—and they've been at it for weeks. ... Given the timing and the accounts suspended, they believe that they are in fact the mystery "individual" who threw a wrench into Facebook's system, noted in Facebook's explanation of the events. "Considering the hours and hours I spent reporting accounts over the course of the past month, it is likely that I am."
TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
"Oh no I'm very serious. Spent most of my time at work past 3 days reporting Queens."
Considering I spend my Friday midnight completing shellshock patches to keep this planet running ... Can we start firing people who are useless to the world in general?
Re:TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Can we start firing people who are useless to the world in general?
That would be all of us - the world got by just fine before our species even existed, and likely will again when it's gone.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
"Useless" and "essential" are not the same thing.
Re:TFA (Score:5, Funny)
- the world got by just fine before our species even existed, and likely will again when it's gone.
How can the world get by, when noone is there to anthropomorphise it?
Facebook policy is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It is facebook's pointless, unfair, side-effect prone, and essentially pinheaded "real name" policy that is the problem. Without the policy, the problem would not exist (and people who would have otherwise not had to reveal their real names could be a lot safer on the site.)
But that's the nature of the beast. They're selling you to advertisers, and they can do whatever they want with you. Any idea you had about the site being about you is laughably off-base. What it is, is bait for you. They'll do what they need to do to attain and maintain critical mass for their actual customers (advertisers), and not one thing more.
The citizens are, by and large, far too dimwitted to move to a network where they *are* the focus. And so it goes.
Re: (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes, but this loser reporting Queens probably thinks it's not just any Friday but time for Joe Friday - of Drag Net.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry sunshine. In a real professional environment, we don't [b]use[/b] debian systems much less use package managers unless the location of the patches are managed in the environment. Plus with hundreds of servers and applications that might be affected, additional testing to make sure things still work after the update is applied is necessary. It's taken us a week to get patches out just to our internet facing systems. We're still waiting on engineering to approve the updates as not impacting production a
Re: (Score:2)
Of course not. What real professional environments use are Windows systems with Visual Basic programs "some guy" wrote.
Re:TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
TF upgrades, fixes and regressions (Score:5, Informative)
I'm truly sorry you chose to make that post anonymously. Spot on, and amusing at the same time. I would have enjoyed making sure I took special note of future postings if I knew who you were. Well, kudos anyway. :)
The rush to "do" underlies a great deal of our problems from incompatible OS upgrades, bugs left behind to fester, the rug being yanked out from under previously working applications, and functionality going missing -- or crazy -- or sideways -- in existing user applications. There are methodologies that can resolve all of these things the vast majority of the time, but very few software developers at any level use them. Much harm results.
<RANT>
Primary among them, NEVER remove or change the stated design behavior of an existing function. If you have a better idea, add a new function with a new stated design behavior. Leave the previously existing one alone; if necessary, point out that it won't work with "new stuff", if indeed that is the case. Then stop. If an already existing function is not behaving as the stated design behavior says it should, change it until it does.
Pro tip: If "upgrading", if whatever "enhancements" you created make something stop working or degrades how it works in an existing application that used the function according to its stated design intent, it's about 1000000:1 that it's your fault AND that you shouldn't have done whatever you did.
It doesn't matter if you're an OS programmer, an application programmer, a PD library maintainer, or what. If and when you screw up existing stated design behavior, you have not created an "upgrade", you have created a "fuckyougrade" and somewhere, someone, or more likely many someones, are contemplating dragging you through a fire ant hill after dousing you with some other ant hill's characteristic pheromones.
</RANT>
Re: (Score:3)
Primary among them, NEVER remove or change the stated design behavior of an existing function.
Ahh, fantasyland. I knew that we would arrive here sooner or later. If you never remove an existing function, you have to maintain that code for eternity. Functions must sometimes die.
You're right about never changing the design behavior of the function, though. A new function is needed when the new function behaves differently from the old function.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't sound like you are very close to the trading floor, perhaps a back office IT worker at best.
You don't let people very close to the trading floor anywhere near the back office. It keeps money from disappearing.
What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Interesting)
Phelps was a smash and grab lawsuit factory. They purposely intended to incite people hiding behind religious freedom in the hopes someone would retaliate in a way they could sue and gang band big bucks. It's probably nothing like what was going through this asshats head.
Instead, it is likely more related to the why only me mentality.
Many of you might have suffered it yourself. It's like in school when everyone is talking instead of reading and one person gets singled out by the teacher and that person objects because everyone else was doing it too. It's like following the flow of traffic with ten cars in front of you and ten cars behind you and the cop single you out to give a speeding ticket- why is he busting me and letting everyone else go?
This guy likely had some super cool name he had to change from and use his real name instead which was less cool and was pissed because others were getting by with using fake names. I've had that happen before in games, one game, you had to use English in your profiles or provide a translation, one kid got busted using his native Croatian and went around reporting everyone else' profile that were not in English and didn't have a translation (which took up space in the profile shortening what you could put in it). The rules stated there was an exception if the non-English phrase was common enough to be understood but "For rent, agent of death- caveat emptor" got me a 2 day ban because of him.
Re: (Score:3)
You are right.. lol. evidently one of the most common latin phrases was not common enough to qualify for the exception.
Or maybe latin simply isn't common any more. I wonder how many people under 30 had to look that up?
Re: (Score:2)
The late unlamented Fred Phelps and his crew took any expression of disgust and outrage against him as evidence they were doing the Lord's work. That's how these folks think.
So you're suggesting that they could be compared to a non-violent ACT UP San Francisco [sfgate.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
"Think" is not the word I would use to describe what they do. But yeah, that's how they believe.
Re: What an asshole (Score:2, Insightful)
A London theater refused to stage a Jewish film festival because the event had received a small grant from the Israeli embassy.
Oh no! The next step must surely be the gas chambers!
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Griefer (Score:2, Informative)
In the Gamer community this person would be known as a griefer, they enjoy nothing more than ruining things for others and while spend as many hours if not more doing so.
CAPTCHA: offends
Re: (Score:3)
Nope, in the gamer community this person would be hailed as a hero for outing people who act unethically by disregarding Facebook's rules.
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
Picking on the LGBT community with this is probably the most effective way of combatting the policy ...
Re: (Score:2)
You just have to be on the "politically correct" side for Facebook to act.
Facebook Finally Deletes the ‘Kill Kendall Jones’ Page [nationalreview.com]
Background: Facebook pulled down the hunting photos of Kendall Jones citing a violation of the social-media site's "community standards," but they allowed the page titled "Kill Kendall Jones" to remain stating that it did not violate their policies. A tad hypocritical, to say the least.
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm more concerned that Facebook didn't have a process in place to monitor for OBVIOUS abuses.
1. Hundreds of complaints filed.
2. From a single account.
3. In a defined time period.
4. All the victims shared a common trait.
#1 & #2 should have been red flags over and Over and OVER and OVER. How many complaints does the average user file? Why wasn't this flagged with that person hit 2x the average? 5x? 10x? 20x? 50x? 100x?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The average is probably less than 1, hell, the 99th percentile is probably less than 1. It sounds really easy in theory, but these sorts of things really are only reported by busybodies that will stick out in any statistical analysis. For that matter, he was doing what Facebook WANTED according to their stated policy, that is until it became a political hot potato for them and they caved.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm more concerned that Facebook didn't have a process in place to monitor for OBVIOUS abuses.
1. Hundreds of complaints filed.
2. From a single account.
3. In a defined time period.
4. All the victims shared a common trait.
#1 & #2 should have been red flags over and Over and OVER and OVER. How many complaints does the average user file? Why wasn't this flagged with that person hit 2x the average? 5x? 10x? 20x? 50x? 100x?
Facebook doesn't really care unless it impacts their bottom line.
In this case, it only impacted their bottom line after they started getting negative press for being homophobic.
In fact, they probably like type-A asshats that spend their lives pursuing their site for potential violators... It's like having a free sysadmin on a petty powertrip!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, not only that, I don't see where facebook should see a problem if the reports are not fraudulent. In that I mean, as long as real accounts with people using fake names were reported and that was in violation of their policies, then there should be no cause for alarm.
What there should be is an easy appeals process to reinstate an account that was disabled unjustly and possible a tag that could be added internally to stop it from happening again. So when Steve wants to be Stephenie, and it is reported,
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'm more concerned that Facebook didn't have a process in place to monitor for OBVIOUS abuses.
what abuses? guy was reporting accounts VIOLATING OFFICIAL POLICY
Re: (Score:3)
what abuses? guy was reporting accounts VIOLATING OFFICIAL POLICY
Systematic reporting of accounts violating the official policy was a homophobic attack targeting people with a good reason to violate the official policy. "I only followed orders" stopped being an excuse 70 years ago. "They are violating official policy" stopped being an excuse for discrimination at the same time. Little Hitlers need to be stopped, not excused.
Re: (Score:3)
I think the legal name requirement of facebook itself pretty much makes people target for abuse to begin with. You see, "Anonymous" or whatever you want to call them is nothing new. Groups like that have existed under various banners since the dawn of the internet, and they will never go away because of the anonymous nature of the internet itself. They would not have trouble creating a fake account, because they don'
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
A self-declared superior dickhead.
Few dickheads are honest enough to admit they are dickheads. They instead look for something to justify their actions. They may have an unusual code of conduct, or an attitude of hostility towards their targets. A lot of the anti-gay dickheads use religion as justification, because with the right choice of religious faction to follow their actions become not just justifiable, but morally mandated. In their mind, he isn't being a dickhead by trying to rid Facebook of drag qu
Re: (Score:2)
There's a particular kind of feminist known as a TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) who see trans women as men who are pretending to be women so they can rape women. They put massive amounts of effort into uncovering and harassing trans women, outing them to employers and schools, etc. Drag queens aren't trans women, but if I had to lay money on a responsible party, my best guess would be a TERF.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Interesting)
What's a "real name"? The name that you insist everyone calls you would be my definition. "Don't call me by my government"
Real name policies are BS anyhow - very Western Firstname Lastname centric, ignorant of cultures where the only unique name for someone is the list of all the names they're known by (which, as you might imagine, makes printed phone books less than useful).
One of the great truisms of software development is that there's no universal way to break down a persons name into components, and people get really pissed when you get their name wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Interesting)
not quite. A Statutory Declaration, which what you're referring to to give its proper name, is signed by two witnesses or a Notary. This is simply a declaration that you're using a new name, possibly one which you're already using and by which people know you, and that you disavow any future usage of your previous name. A Deed Poll (or to give its proper name, a Change of Name Deed) is countersigned by a Magistrate and given weight by a Judicial Seal.
(I've acted as a sig witness many times).
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
Name changes are just annoying to IT. New username, move user folder, new email address, update three different databases, update the address book, configure email alias... then wait about ten years until everyone stops emailing the old address.
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Interesting)
As for myself, I'll be happy once the world learns to build systems that don't break on the apostrophe in my last name. I still come across plenty of systems that don't, and every time I am tempted to go "Johnny Tables" on their ass.
I'm still waiting for computer systems that can handle my address, which has a y with a circumflex in it... I frequently get letters and packages arrive that has "ŷ" printed on the address label! (Yes, even big international websites like Amazon, SagePay, etc. are incapable of using a valid UTF-8 character... In fact ISTR SagePay's API only supports ISO8859.
Re: (Score:3)
We all just assumed you first name was Johnny.
Re: (Score:2)
well, not all of us.
Assumption: the mother of all fuckups.
Generalisation: possibly the father.
Re: What an asshole (Score:5, Informative)
Re: What an asshole (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed, but western cultures have a right to their conventions just as other cultures do. Stop shaming.
Re: (Score:2)
Real name policies are BS anyhow - very Western Firstname Lastname centric, ignorant of cultures where the only unique name for someone is the list of all the names they're known by
my name is daenerys stormborn targaryan, trueborn queen of the andals and first men, mother of dragons
Re: (Score:3)
There are people in Western culture who have problems too.
Like royals with only first names. Quite often a long row of them, but still no last name.
Then there are native Americans. Thoroughly Westernized, but with names like As The Owl Flies one risks being called "Mr. Flies", and get letters with "Hi, As"
Then there are systems that only allow a small subset of pre- and postfixes. They allow III but not IV, so those who have the same name as their father, grandfather and great-grandfather end up as Mr. I
Re: (Score:3)
Personally, I've found that having a two word last name is enough to confuse many systems.
You should see the violence and mayhem that an individual with the name A O (first name A, last name O) wreaks upon an HMO patient data file system for which some long-departed pre-millenial programmer decided there should be a three-character minimum for the combined name field.
Re: (Score:2)
There are other royal/noble families than the British ones.
And in some cases their names can very well be something like Charles Robert XII of the grand dutchy of Backwoodsia where "Charles" is the "middle" name inherited from some great great uncle, Robert is the first name and the XII is because there were 11 previous nobles/kings with that title who were also named Robert and "of the grand dutchy of Backwoodsia" isn't actually a last name but a title.
This person then gets to choose between "Mr, Ms, Mrs a
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
You are the reason we can't have nice things like anonymity and common fucking sense.
Facebook is not a government entity. It is an entertainment site and its rules are about as authentic as your IQ.
Facebook's goal is to validate its user base because advertisers are learning that while Facebook brags about having over 1 billion members, some of those are bogus [venturebeat.com].
Facebook has no legal authority regarding whether name are real or not.
The site is free and the only recourse Facebook has is to block shit.
The sooner you learn that you are Facebook's bitch, the better.
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook isn't a free website, you're voluntarily surrendering your privacy and anonymity in order to use it - which is the entire reason behind the real name policy. That data sink with the blue banner is there to collect identifiable information about YOU and how you interact online, and sell that information on to people and companies who want nothing else but to sell you shit through persistent and targetted advertising.
You are in a dreamworld if you think for one second that Facebook gives a shit for your privacy, and the RNP absolutely proves the point.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's assume for a moment that you have a child going to second grade. You piss someone off, and they decide to get back at you through your family. They take you child's photo, pictures of the school they attend and your house and phone number and post it on websites frequented by pedophiles. They imply that your child is available for sex. You start getting horrible phone calls at all hours of the day and night, creepy guys drive by your house, and even knock on your door.
Re: (Score:3)
So seriously, why do they need a real name policy to prevent any of that?
Since well before Facebook sites have had a TOS that would say things like "we reserve the right to kick you out if we deem your activity may be illegal, or harasses others."
Seems to me that would more than cover all the scenarios you mention. All the cases I've seen where "real names" are supposed to stop harassment, seem pretty straight forward. Just have a policy to stop harassment. Is it easier to verify someone's identity rather t
Re: (Score:3)
If you don't like Facebook's policies don't use them. Nothing forces you to use Facebook, there are plenty of other social websites many without policies similar to Facebooks.
I personally encourage Facebook to actually enforce it's rules. I hope more people run around reporting rule violations so that these incidents keep happening. Maybe at some point people will realize Facebook is pure evil and stop using it. I don't use it, and neither should you.
And don't give me any shit about you can't because your f
Re: (Score:3)
Remember, for the LGBT community the consequences can be as serious as grievous bodily injury or death at the hands of a complete stranger. Chanting "free enterprise" as a justification in this situation puts you firmly on the side of potential violent thugs.
And this is relevant to Facebook's interests how? Needless to say, they haven't given a shit yet about this huge problem. Make them give a shit or they won't change.
I think a good solution here is for a few hundred thousand people to create fake accounts, report each others' fake account mixing in a bunch of real name accounts as well, then petition when their accounts are banned. Lather. Rinse. Repeat until Facebook changes the policy or goes bankrupt, whichever comes first.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> OK, I stopped reading at the ad hominem
I'm kind of tired of people misusing that term.
Ad hominem: "Your argument is wrong because you are a dickhead."
Insult: "You are a dickhead because your argument is wrong."
OK?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
My impression is that he was reporting all fake names that he came across, definitely not just queens, but he found easy hunting grounds with queens. The article says he was also looking for innuendo names and cartoon character names because that was also easy.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you prefer tattletale?
It seems very kindergarten, but perhaps that really is the maturity level we're dealing with.
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that the individual who reported the aliases (non-real names) to Facebook was only reporting people who violated the TOS from Facebook users.
That, without a lot more information, does not qualify this person as "an asshole", "a dickhead" or "a pathetic jerk". It does seem to qualify you as those three, though.
No, it means that you're too lazy to bother reading what's out there about this person - who admits, even glorifies, in targeting a specific community - members of the LGBT community. In one tweet, they even call transvestites sodomites, even though the vast majority of cross-dressers are heterosexual males. Then when all hell broke loose, they went after people with accounts for their pets, probably to make it look less like they had been targeting a specific group based on their sexual or gender expression.
There was a time when I was transitioning when I didn't have the necessary documentation to back up my new identity. Can you understand the chilling effect this would have on people who are following their doctor's orders, who have told friends and family that they're getting a sex change, but who, because of a mis-application of facebook's policy, would still have to use their old, gender-inappropriate name? Or would just drop out of sight entirely at the time when they are most in need of their network of friends?
This person needs to either get a life or get help.
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it means that you're too lazy to bother reading what's out there about this person - who admits, even glorifies, in targeting a specific community - members of the LGBT community.
Why do the police target criminals? It's SO UNFAIR!!!
Oh, wait, he targets the people who are violating the TOS.
Deal with it.
It's been dealt with - facebook has decided that this was not, in fact, a violation of their TOS. People are allowed to use the name they are commonly known to the world by. So everyone who knows Billy-Bob and Mary-Ann from high school doesn't have to search for William Robert and Maria Anastasia.
Can you understand the chilling effect this would have on people who are following their doctor's orders, who have told friends and family that they're getting a sex change, but who, because of a mis-application of facebook's policy, would still have to use their old, gender-inappropriate name?
No, because I can't understand what kind of horrible doctor would order anyone to do something that insane.
What? Order someone to live for a year in their target gender before getting a sex change? It gives time to create a supportive environment with our job, friends, family, before doing anything permanent. And finding out who our real friends are, time to adapt to the hormonal changes and the emotional changes they can trigger, and being able to have a job after surgery, because just walking into work without giving everyone a heads-up in advance will create problems. Or, if work doesn't accept the situation, get a new job in our new gender right from the get-go.
Or if you think that the whole idea of transsexuals getting a sex change is horrible, well, we'll just have to disagree on that, for obvious reasons :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Or, in a brighter future, technology has advanced to the point where anyone who wishes can flip their gender on a whim, therefore simultaneously obsoleting gender discrimination, giving people access to a wider set of expriences and giving people who's identity revolves around trying to control others plenty to impo
Re: (Score:3)
Cohn and Zheng, also members of the UF Genetics Institute, found that the developing digits of male and female mouse embryos are packed with receptors for sex hormones. By following the prenatal development of the limb buds of mice, which have a digit length ratio similar to humans, the scientists controlled the gene signaling effects of androgen — also known as testosterone — and estrogen.
Essentially, more androgen equated to a proportionally longer fourth digit. More estrogen resulted in a feminized appearance. The study uncovered how these hormonal signals govern the rate at which skeletal precursor cells divide, and showed that different finger bones have different levels of sensitivity to androgen and estrogen.
We know that the 2D:4D digit ratio shows a correlatio
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That's almost funny. Almost.
Anti-snitch campaign riles police, prosecutors [usatoday.com]
Of course we may see some irony unfold here.
14-Year-Old Shot In The Head Was Son Of ‘Stop Snitching’ DVDs Creator [cbslocal.com]
Do you think he prefers his son's murder to go unsolved?
Blame shift (Score:5, Insightful)
If applying your own laws is "throwing a wrench" perhaps your laws are the problem?
Differential enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not this guy nor Facebook's rules, but that the rules were enforced in a biased manner. This will always be a problem with only enforcing a rule after a report, because unpopular groups or individuals will be reported more often than the majority.
Differential enforcement (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is, in fact, with Facebook's rules. Facebook did not recognize that a class of persons, that they would have been better off providing protection for, strongly identified with a name other than their legal name.
The rules were not enforced in a biased manner, but in a blind manner.
What you want is a compensatory bias to be applied after a report. That's not unbiased enforcement.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't like biased rule enforcements? MISOGYNIST!!!
Facebook is full of s@#4 (Score:2)
I apologize for the semi-offensive subject, but nothing else I tried was as accurate or clear.
There's no 'lone actor' or 'rogue account' forcing them to do this. This is THEIR OWN POLICY. Claiming someone else 'forced' them to do it is standard corporate/military/law enforcement weaseling. 'The officer's gun was discharged 30 times into the suspect.' Well darn, that poor officer with his gun going off like that and all.
Total damage control bullcrap.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
yes. exactly. so why does anyone put up with this stinking pile?
they have network effects
so whats the first thing you should do as a queen, a statist, a racist, a leftist, a druggie,
a libertarian, or any other kind of self-proclaimed individual
tell them to fuck straight off. say hello to your neighbor. i mean the actual piece of flesh
that sleeps 50 yards away from you at night.
their trillions are based on nothing else than the fact that you feel compelled to post
shit on their website. dont complain about th
Facebook empowers bullies (Score:5, Insightful)
What's troubling is the fact that no one at Facebook contemplated the possibility that this policy would be used as a form of bullying. Their aribtrarily-enforced rules about nudity are routinely used the same way by homophobes, who go around reporting innocuous photos (and even illustrations) of partial male nudity or even just gay couples kissing or showing affection, causing headaches, suspensions, and even bans of gay people from the site. And they do so with complete impunity because they can do so anonymously, and there is no penalty for false reports. The users who are reported are given no right to challenge their accusers (or even know who they are), and effectively no right to appeal. Facebook's own policies and procedures facilitate and empower this kind of harassment and abuse. And they're just now noticing?
Re: (Score:2)
Who says they did not? Generally there is nothing wrong with bullying. As long as it is the right side, which does the bullying.
Re:Facebook empowers bullies (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Using pot is legal in Washington, but not in public, and the officer was doing his job.
His job is to serve the public's interest in the form of public safety, not to harass the citizenry for engaging in their chosen, victimless behavior. If the law required enforcement, he would be doing his job, but it does not. He was harassing the citizenry.
Facebook's fault (Score:2)
At the core of the problem has always been Facebook's real name policy, plus the way they handle complaints by users against users. Reporting people violating Facebook's policy to Facebook isn't vigilantism; the responsibility for the policy and its enforcement still lies entirely with Facebook.
Although as a private institution, they can do what they want, maybe voluntarily respecting principles that work well in public life, namely free speech and due process, would perhaps be a good policy?
War of good verses evil. (Score:2)
I hate to say this, but this is a classic war of good versus evil. The good people have been trying to live their lives, but also not allowing hate speech to be spread about them. The bad is the people who spew the hate and who have had their hate groups shut down because they were reported, rightfully so as spewing hate. Seems like the evil side found a easy way to retaliate. :(
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It always comes down to the same problem: If one is trying to be tolerant, how much intolerance can one tolerate?
Re: (Score:2)
Hate speech itself is the problem because it's defined so loosely that virtually anything that pings on someone's nerve is called hate speech whether it be directed and hostile language or simply a difference of opinion.
Hate speech is always just a "difference of opinion". Some people have the opinion that they should be able to live peacefully without being attacked, and other people think they shouldn't.
A Vexing Problem We Can Force Facebook To Fix (Score:3)
Obviously the current system in which individuals with ideological axes to grind can negatively impact communities where people don't go by their legal names. However, it's not obvious what the right rule should be. Of course I think you should be able to use psuedonyms, nicknames, stage names etc.. etc.. on facebook but how do you deal with facebook identity theft.
So I have Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I go create a facebook account pretending to be her and, if she isn't a huge celebrity, it wouldn't be too hard to convince a large number of people (probably anyone not already friends with the real individual) that I'm really Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I can then use that account to make her look like a racist, ruin relationships with coworkers and potential employers etc.. etc... unless my fake account can be suspended quit quickly. Alright how can facebook do this.
1) A real names policy. True, this has all the bad consequences above but it allows them to immediately suspend accounts but isn't vulnerable to serious DOS type attacks since a since credit card transaction or the like can quickly confirm someone's legal name and prevent any false impersonation accusation from ever causing another suspension. Given the low probability that someone with the same name wants to engage in the impersonation facebook has enough human hours to evaluate these rare situations in reasonable detail.
But this undermines an essential purpose of facebook. To let people present themselves online to the same people they know offline meaning stage names, nicknames etc.. etc..
2) A no impersonation rule. Alright now someone asserts the account Jennifer Doe is impersonating her. What can facebook do? If the suspend the existing account things are even worse since instead of creating a fake account someone with ill-intent asserts that the current account holder is an imposter gets their account suspended and now controls the only account representing itself to be Jennifer Doe's. Given the size of facebook they simply can't stop anyone from creating any new account with that name and the impersonator could create an account Jen Doe.
The very fact that people are allowed to use names other than their legal names means there is no good heuristic to see who is likely the deliberate imposter. After all Jennifer Doe might be the name she goes by in school but the name on her birth certificate could well be Bertha Jennifer Doe and Jennifer might not even appear on things like credit cards meaning facebook doesn't even have a good guess as to the imposter.
Also this creates the possibility of a DOS attack against any account (keep claiming it is an imposter account from accounts). If facebook eventually stops viewing such imposter accusations as real then any imposter who gets their before the real user can simply launch a bunch of accusations of imposterization at themselves until they insulate themselves against any accusation from the person they are actually impostering (after all they can be a perfectly legit Jennifer Doe account then change their picture and other details later to impersonate a target).
----
What they should do is basically implement a web of trust style infrastructure. Facebook can start occasionally asking people who frequently message or are listed as close friends whether the person they talked to or the person with that email address really went to school such and such. Also friend requests should include a couple of selected bits of public info (like email address and the like) which, would hopefully make impersonization more difficult.
Ultimately, however, facebook needs to have a attestation system akin to key signing. You get your close friends to attest that the person whose picture and details appear in the facebook account really controls the account. Details will be a pain in the ass but it's the only plausible way since impersonization is a matter of details like schools, pictures etc.. etc.. not real names and facebook just can't check those themselv
Re: (Score:3)
You're not looking at it from facebook's perspective. Serving the users is vital, but they need to make a profit - which means maintaining the value of their data to advertisers. A real names policy is difficult to enforce, but it also goes some way to ensuring the accuracy of that data. A lot of advertising is aimed at one gender or the other. Real names also allow for cross-correlation with other data sets - store loyalty cards, other websites, things like that.
Even legal names have their problems. There
forcing them to enforce a flawed policy (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
This is not news and it certainly isn't news for nerds.
The abusing of an online social network to target individuals of a particular type is not news, especially for nerds? There were flaws in the reporting process. If each report about a fake name from person "A" was forwarded to the same handler, the pattern would have been apparent within hours. So, one flaw in the process, with a solution that all sites could implement.
If that's not practical, then have a method so that, when a new report is made, the reviewer sees the reporter's history. 200 reports
Re: (Score:2)
But there was no abuse. The fake name policy was changed after they found it impacted a set of people. It's like admonishing a cop for writing too many speeding tickets on a road before the speed limit had been raised. The only pattern that should have been recognized was a lot of speeders on that road and of course the action needed was to raise the speed limits. This is the same with facebook. The guy reporting, regardless of his motivation, was following policy and the pattern that eventually showed was
Re: (Score:2)
But there was no abuse. The fake name policy was changed after they found it impacted a set of people. It's like admonishing a cop for writing too many speeding tickets on a road before the speed limit had been raised.
This is like admonishing a cop who knowingly wrote tickets at a place where the speed limit sign was obviously wrong, where following the speed sign would have caused traffic chaos and going at the higher speed made everything run smoothly and safe.
Re: (Score:2)
Personnaly, I blame all the homophones lurking on the Internet. You know who you are! You can't hide from us!
Re: (Score:2)
I like to sew confusion into a jacket, then walk through a crowd wearing it.
Re: (Score:2)
They claim it is to curtail "cyber-bullying" (AKA- Trolling). There is no reason they can't show aliases instead of real names while still requiring real names to sign up. Even Google is seeing that this option is better than the real name policy they used to have.
Re: (Score:3)
Facebook "users" are a product being sold. Real names allow Facebook to better monetize their user database by enabling correlation with other big data vendors like Acxiom. Once they have a complete profile of who you are and the entire details of your life, it is much easier to implement targeted ads. Fake names are useless for making them money.
Re: (Score:2)
Or just set the game's posts to show only to you. It's not hard. It's a lot easier than making a fake account.