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Comment by celticjames | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I understand the real name policy of either Facebook or Google+. Isn't the whole point of a social graph that it is personally curated by me? The identities of my friends/circles are verified by me.

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No, the policy of at least Facebook is you use the real, legal names as determined by the state. If you are locked out of your Facebook account, they ask you to send a copy of a government issued ID to prove who you are.

The idea that you are "curating" might be something they'd like you to think.

In Britain your real name is the name you choose to use for every-day purposes. The state just follows your choice of name.

What if I want to find someone I met ten years ago and have no idea what nickname they have chosen? What about friends of my friends?

If one does not agree with the policy—just don't sign up. I find fake names on Facebook really annoying.

It’s not up to you how someone chooses to make themselves known to others. If they want to change it’s probably for a reason.

OK, and what if I want to find someone I met ten years ago, and I have no idea what their real name is because no one ever uses it? A ton of my friends in high school and college went by nicknames the entire time anyone ever interacted with them. I had a good friend in college whom /everyone/ called "C.C." (as in, "see see"): her name was "Corrine", but I don't really know how to spell it and I'm one of the few people who ever actually bothered to learn it.

The simple answer is: The internet, and society, does not owe you the right to identify and find anyone you've ever met. People are entitled to their anonymity and privacy.

Just because someone went to school with me, or was buddies with me in school doesn't mean they get to know what I'm up to now or where I am, or even how to get ahold of me.....

That is begging the question. What if the person WANTS you to be able to find them, but they have always gone by a nickname that they can't use because facebook's policies is real-names-only?

Well, if you think that, you also are going to be taking issue with rimantas' point as well, so it is kind of a wash. The goal of my response was to show that /if/ you agreed with rimantas (and you don't), then you actually had to support nicknames in addition to real names.

Yes!

I have nothing to add to this, but I believe this is an important right, too important to up-vote this comment in silence.

"People are entitled to their anonymity and privacy."

I wish more people would respect this- Google, Mark Zuckerberg, users.

It's ironic how back in the early days of the internet, there was a sense of anonymity where people were afraid to share info online but now anyone willingly posts their most personal details for all to see because those "dumb fucks"[1] trust Mark Zuckerberg.

Now, we've opened ourselves up to this: http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/06/20/now-your-emba... and it could come back to bite us all in the ass.

1. http://gizmodo.com/5538489/19+year+old-facebook-ceo-didnt-ta...

You can't find him by only his nickname. You have to add other things like where he lived, what is his college etc (if he wants to share that info with the world). Nickname/identity is not that important for you as it is for google/facebook.

What if the person doesn't want you to find them?

A nice side effect is the civility of discussions. People tend to be much less likely to spam/troll when their real identity is tied to it. Look at the difference in comment quality between YouTube and Facebook for example.

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