Being Your Selves: Identity R&D on Alt Twitter | Hacker News Reader

Being Your Selves: Identity R&D on Alt Twitter

ribbonfarm.com

54 pointstodsacerdoti19 comments

I think most people make alt identities not through some sense of exploring self, but to make sure they don’t get “cancelled” in real life based on some post that goes viral and generates outrage.

Twitter dogpiles are a fairly modern concern. People have been using different nicknames on the internet as part of basic information hygiene for a long time. For kids it's a basic "talking to strangers", bullying and "teenagers doing teenager things" protection. For some it's to avoid stalking. Another reason it to just not have a history attached to yourself when you join some specific community, it's baggage.

I've been thinking similar lines for some months now, and wondering if anyone has setup a "find me here if deplatformed from there" type of site or something?

something like about.me with one nickname, that lists twitter, tube, insta, mastadon, keybase, pgp key, etc etc

I almost think it would need to be available on the main web, but also cloned on a blockchain like history on the dark web in order to be truly useful..

It's gotten to the point where I am avoiding services (like anchor.fm) because building a water cooler crowd is useless when you can be deplatformed in a split second without notice and without recourse..

If we had an unstoppable about.me, maybe append only lists like securescuttlebutt? or something out there, and people knew to go looking there, I think this would be beneficial.

> something like about.me with one nickname, that lists twitter, tube, insta, mastadon, keybase, pgp key, etc etc

Wouldn't that just make cross-service deplatforming easier? "hey, $serviceProvider, that person said $offensiveThing on $differentPlatform. I'm outraged that you provide a platform to such vile individuals"

well yes, but I think it's going to make it easier for the not-so-tech-savvy to find more.. the doxxers are going to find all that an more to wage a whine campaign - so might as well make it easier for the non-haters to find other places to engage.. hopefully there will be services that are impossible to shutdown in the list - of course that will vary by region and issues I would think.

Not to mention future employers combing through your history. Anything could be taken out of context and used against you. You see this all the time with political candidates-- that one drunken photo of you at a party in college? Who knows, it could bite you 30 years down the road, in ways that you never expected.

I only speak pseudonymously now and throw out identities the way that drug dealers throw out cell phones. And even then, with the threat of future AI-assisted doxxing I don’t discuss some topics, online or IRL, that I freely discussed IRL pre-Internet.

That's a very good point. In the future, an AI may well be able to find all identities of a person based on ways they express themselves, etc.

My work uses anonymous surveys for feedback. On freeform answers, I change my diction, grammar, case usage, etc. I'm still pretty sure that someone could identify my response as me. But hopefully an AI would be stumped!

This article does a great job of articulating the principles of identity which I’ve been teaching to my daughter ever since she’s been old enough to understand what a Twitter account is. Even though social media is banned in our household, I’ve laid out a few ground rules that must remain sacrosanct for the sake of basic safety.

1. Your “real” identity - the one to which your “real” phone number and Social Security number are linked - is for banking, buying a house, trading stocks, paying utility bills, e-commerce, car registration, life insurance, and so on.

2. Never do or say anything online that would reveal your “real” identity in any way. There’s a surprisingly broad spectrum of activities which might reveal your identity. Don’t take selfies next to your (or my) car. Don’t take selfies next to home. Better yet, don’t take selfies at all. Don’t geotag anything. Don’t “check into” places. Don’t mention your first name. Don’t be telling anyone about your real birthday. Build an impenetrable firewall between “the internet” and your “real identity”, and keep it in good repair.

3. All identities other than the “real” one are throwaway. Use a different e-mail address, phone number, and name for each website. Never use the same pseudonym more than once.

4. Don’t tell your real-life friends anything about your “other” identities. Don’t use social media under your “real” identity. This way, the two can never be linked.

5. Don’t be afraid to periodically “pull a _why” on your pseudonymous identities. The forest of “yous” will grow thick and lush, and will need a preventive burn every now and again in order to avoid an uncontrollable conflagration later. Delete what you can; abandon what you can’t. Move on and move up.

6. If you ever feel compelled to make an exception to the rule, come talk to me before you make the decision. Chances are that I’ll be able to hear you out and make a convincing case against breaking rules 1-5.

Ever since I’ve come up with these ground rules, I’ve slowly wound down my own social media presence. I have set up an alter ego under which I’m conducting my open source and other online activities. When asked why I don’t use my “real name” GitHub for anything but work, I say that this is my way of keeping things separate for the sake of sanity and safety. People nod their understanding, but they don’t really get it, and that’s okay. They can’t possibly get to know every side of me.

I have the opposite approach : everything is under my real name and easily traceable to me.

Thus, I have never the illusion of being hidden online and I need to be conscious that everything I say is said on a public place and that I have to be accountable for my actions.

(ironicaly my hackernews username is the furthest from my real name but it should still take you under 5 minutes to find my full name without effort)

Wow, as long as you're ok with your daughter being an outcast among her peers.

And I can't help but feel like an effective serial killer wrote that post.

Your “outcast” assertion is unsupported by facts. It turns out that not everything happens on social media. Within a group of friends even a single person who isn’t on Twitter/Snapchat/TikTok/etc tends to pull the entire group’s narrative away from those platforms and into the domain of a more private tool, such as iMessage or WhatsApp. Within the Gen Z cohort the understanding is crystallizing that social media is toxic, addictive, and leads to nothing but bleak and depressing thoughts. This commonly understood truth enables people like my kid to act as an anchor that keeps numerous others on solid ground and away from the jaws of “big social tech”.

And thank you for the “serial killer” comment: I’ll take it as a compliment.

PS- I'm sure you only have the best intentions.

> 4. Don’t tell your real-life friends anything about your “other” identities. Don’t use social media under your “real” identity. This way, the two can never be linked.

How can you add your real life friends on social media if they cannot recognise your pseudonymous profile? Or if somehow they're added, they then reduce the anonymity of your handle... on the other hand having only an anonymous handle on social media means you can only interact with other anonymous handles and not your real life friends, which considerably reduces its value.

While I’m pro-privacy preservation, the idea that these are necessary for “basic safety” seems a bit extreme. Can you add some thoughts about what exactly these are keeping your daughter safe from?

Doxxing and stalkers and other abuse. Postings dredged up from years (and, eventually, decades) ago which can destroy careers. Phishing attacks that rely on knowing things about a person from their social media profiles.

I can go on all day, but the most persuasive voice is your own. Imagine yourself posting your address, full legal name, social security number and bank account numbers right here, right now. What are some considerations that would prevent you from doing this? Would you attach the same information to political activism? What if the tables were to turn in the future, leaving you on the wrong side of history and consequently out of a job?

you can conduct your own experiment (beware you may not be able to stomach the results).

1) set up a facebook profile with a sock puppet identity. make your character female and ~12-15 years of age. don't forget a profile pic.

2) prepare your inbox.

https://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20191216/posing-online

most people don't have this conversation with their kids. they let them sign up and hope for the best. (which 12 yro doesn't have a phoen today??) -> that's what I'd consider extreme (not somebody teaching their kids about how to be safe).

Yeah this is a legitimate concern (frankly sickening) but didn’t seem to be what the parent post was pointing to. This should be resolved by an outright social media ban (as parent has), strong privacy settings, and maybe occasional checks on the kid’s private messages (though, as an advocate of privacy I’m also an advocate of children’s privacy).

Parent’s response seems more oriented around the, “saying something you regret on a permanent record” area which, again is a legitimate concern, but not what I would classify as “basic safety.”

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