Google Begins Practically Begging You to Use Your Real Name on YouTube
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betabeat.com
I wanted to quickly fire off a comment, something I almost never do. Instead, and completely unexpectedly, I get a scary modal dialog "Start using your full name on YouTube". Really, that's bad enough as it is. I didn't interact in a way that'd make me expect any kind of dialog (e.g. logging in/out or a major account modification). And there is no easy way to dismiss the dialog without making a decision, no X in a corner, clicking the background does nothing. Also really, really bad. Opening another YouTube window doesn't help, either, you just get another copy of the dialog.
But the reaction to declining the request -- which is the non-default, non-highlighted option -- is just outrageous. Instead of simply going away silently, or maybe telling me where to activate the feature if I change my mind, it tells me it'll show my real name anyway, but just in a preview mode that's only visible to me, if I just click the default, highlighted button. That's not exactly the opposite of what I wanted it to do when I declined their unprovoked offer, but it's pretty damn close. And again, there is no easy way out, you have to chose a reason why you dare refuse them, with none of the options being "I decline to answer" or "Go to hell"; the closest thing being "I'm not sure, I'll decide later", which I chose and which I expect will just mean I'll be assaulted again in the near future.
This is the kind of hostile user experience I expect on cheap travel websites and other scummy parts of the net, but not on a Google property and certainly not on a website I visit a lot.
Are you a social worker? If so, you are aiming too high. There is absolutely nothing you can do for those people in those comments.
+ Edit to add: A quick check of a few diverse searches show that Youtube is substantially less prominent than I remember it being.
This reminds me Schneir's objection to biometric identification. What do we do if it's compromized ? There is no way we could change it.
One should obviously be able to publish a video that we made without disclosing our identity. Supose I film my cat in my living room showing also the nice HiFi installation behind it. If it is published under my name, it would be like publishing my address on the HiFi.
If as a teenager I film and publish a party where I wouldn't be at my advantage, I don't want that my name is associate to it forever.
I must be able to reset my Internet image and reputation. Especially for young people. Google is already very reluctant to remove references on demand.
At least this now gives something competitors can differentiate with.
We need a place where we can create a virtual identity we can throw away. An identity that we can use as signature for publishing comments, articles and videos.
In this case, it's not a demand; the user has already entered a Google+ name, and Google is offering to show that name on the user's YouTube account.
> Supose I film my cat in my living room showing also the nice
> HiFi installation behind it. If it is published under my
> name, it would be like publishing my address on the HiFi.
The concern here is about privacy, not physical security. Thinking up unrealistic danger scenarios is not productive.
> If as a teenager I film and publish a party where I wouldn't
> be at my advantage, I don't want that my name is associate
> to it forever.
>
> I must be able to reset my Internet image and reputation.
> Especially for young people. Google is already very
> reluctant to remove references on demand.
You ask for the ability to "reset" an identity, but this is impossible. You can't un-break an egg. Everything posted to the internet is public and potentially eternal.
In twenty years, the idea of posting something risqué under one's legal name will be considered as foolish as stapling bank statements and tax returns to a telephone pole.
> We need a place where we can create a virtual identity we
> can throw away. An identity that we can use as signature
> for publishing comments, articles and videos.
> it's practically impossible for a viewer to match a name
> (even your legal name) to your physical location.
Your premise is fine for single videos from someone named Mike Jones, but surely you're familiar with the concept of "bits of information" needed to uniquely identify someone online?
Clearly you have not spent enough time on 4chan. Two instances off the top of my head:
1. Youtuber posts video of his room where he is being mean to his cat. Within 24 hours police are knocking on his door and making an arrest on account of cruelty to animals. 4chan got all his info from something as bening as a webcam's view of a teenager's room.
2. Girl throws puppies into river in bosnia. 48 hours later, police is knocking on her door on account of animal cruelty charges. 4chan had nothing to go on but a video of some average-looking wilderness.
Also a famous case of a few lads throwing a puppy off a bridge.
Now imagine how quickly all of those stories woudl unfold with a name attached! Unimaginably quickly.
Remember, 4chan is the kind of "guy" who tracked down Boxxy and harassed her so much she practically hid from the internet for ~4 years. All from videos of nothing but a face with a black background. They found her home address, her phone number, the school she goes to. Everything.
4chan is scary. I do not want my name on the internet publicly anywhere. Anywhere.
What's fun is that, thanks to the fact that 4chan happily embeds the Analytics/Recaptcha combo, Google may already know your creepiest fetish (along with your real name) in an instant. They can know what you say in 4chan by matching timestamps.
Unless, of course, you are a so called "nerd" and you stay behind 7 proxies and have a clean, incognito browser. dredmorbius' mention of http://33bits.org/about/ definitely applies here.
It's scary that having a name attached to other signals normally found in public profiles (schools, desires) will instantly yield an address for anyone determined enough.
It's scary that it became so ubiquitous. Sometimes, I really miss the old internet.
Not many people appreciate the permanent nature of internet publication, I wouldn't agree that it's ephemeral and disposable, as it's out of the user's hands.
33 bits (actually, 32.6) is enough to identify anyone personally.
As others have noted, there are multiple cases in which people have been identified through their online postings, even when not officially identified, by various disclosures.
It's among the reasons why those who take identity seriously are very, very careful about what they disclose about themselves online.
The Google, YouTube, and G+ names issues is really, really, really bad. It's quite specifically what turned me from a very positive booster of Google to a pretty deep critic.
And yes, while I make some use of Google's services, under various identities, it's an exposure I'm very consciously attempting to reduce.
I have an very unusual name, making me almost certainly the only person in the US with my first and last name. When I google for my name in quotes and "whitepages" it shows my home address.
I'm not personally concerned about physical security, but the idea that name -> address lookup is inconceivable is a foolish claim. Note that all that means for me is that my name on Google+ is my name-shaped nickname instead of my legal name.
What?? Do you really work for Google? I mean, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but when you say "work" what do you mean? Is this Google, the "search engine?" You know what it does right?
I've regularly used Google to match names to addresses, in fact many many people do this. I find this hard to take seriously.
Similarly with FB, even if we assume for a second that they are not overtly malicious, the fact that there are myriad reasons why using a real name is a bad idea but yet we are constrained by the life experiences of what is usually a pretty young engineer that has limited interaction with bad use cases. Brushing this off as not important as Zuck has is very alarming.
I never thought of it this way. This makes me a lot less annoyed, now.
But the fact that it's a no-holds-barred space means that occasionally some genuinely hilarious and unexpected stuff pops up. I really wouldn't want that to change...
On even moderately successful videos, they accumulate really too fast, though. They quickly become impossible to follow.
I don't like this change. If you look at the top two comments on most videos (the two highest-rated comments), they tend to be funny at best, and lame-but-harmless jokes at worst. Not the crown jewel of the Internet by any means, but they've developed a culture of their own, and I dislike the idea of disrupting that with seemingly no reason (other than to create a "unified" identity).
The one exception I've found is for music, where the plays on the video are between 10,000 and 500,000 or so. The discussion is pertinent and sometimes interesting, and I've had a couple of good back-and-forths on those kinds of videos.
I'm not sure if adding real names will help expand the number of videos where discussion is decent, but I don't think it will hurt.
One nice thing is that the anonymity means that real finance people can comment without worrying about their employer finding their comments. All the best financial discussion areas have to have good anonymity for participants to get people from industry involved.
I am glad that I decided to delete my G+ account when news started to float that Google was forcing everyone to use real name in G+ and was closing accounts in cases of un-cooperation, which unintentionally affected someone's gmail account.
> I am glad that I decided to delete my G+ account when
> news started to float that Google was forcing everyone
> to use real name in G+ and was closing accounts in cases
> of un-cooperation, which unintentionally affected
> someone's gmail account.
Did a quick google search for the news articles of that time, and these were the first links. Spending a few more minutes would have given even better results.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/201...
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-deleting-ac...
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-too-much-un...
The Picassa incidence was a later happening.
1. There is no such thing as a real name. You might have a legal name, but they'd need to validate it somehow if contested. Up until now, Google has just been suspending names that didn't look "real" to them.
2. How do they validate this? Do they expect you to send a copy of an ID? What if you photoshop it? What is their data retention policy? Do they have procedures in place for handling sensitive data?
3. Most important, using a legal name does not somehow make the conversation more valid, or more useful. I have yet to see a strong argument that using a name on a government issued ID somehow makes your discourse better. There are countless arguments against this.
I've had to deal with this before. Here's an idea of what happens to you if you run afoul of this policy: https://plus.google.com/115896012705745653160/posts/Kdg2nPzM...
Nathan Roberts (NR = Not Real)? Frank Nash (FN = Fake Name)?
Art Vandelay?
I'm sure the government can already tie people's names to their browsing history (including youtube) via the dns lookups and project echelon. I doubt they'd need anyone's assistance beyond the isp wiretaps, which they already have, for something as simple as this.
The end result's the same, though.
For those interested: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101916-Blizzard-Fo...
I am uninclined to comment with my real name generally because my opinion changes, and I change over time.
I recently left a FB blog comment simply as "I like it" and felt almost uncomfortable with that. Does it matter what my real name is or what I look like? HN shows that anonymity works with just modding and the option to reveal one's identity. Why doesn't YouTube tally user comments and comment scores if they want to improve quality.. that's why I think this is a Big Brother or ad push.
Comments that self-destruct after a set period are another answer to comment quality, or ones that revert to a pseudonym, either fixed or random after a period of time.
They should reward 'real names' (first, last) with more Drive space and an opt-out of the nickname option.
I'm beginning to see the bundling of Flash as a negative thing, it only prolongs the life of that hell-hole called Flash.
I moderate when I answer the door, who I answer the phone for, who I hang out with, and which mail I open. Who wouldn't moderate their YouTube comments? Sheesh.
Yes, it can be abused. To prevent "damage to the community", users who misuse the moderation system by deleting too many comments, declining only specific users, or declining polite (negative) comments, can be flagged as moderation abusers.
I applaud Google. At least they don't do things without your permission. I'm looking at you Facebook.
why not remove the comments feature?
I use a username for non-work related things like posting a videos of toy animals to youtube.
The way things are headed, I guess I need to invent a "real name" for my online personal persona, to replace my username.
I use only to satisfy my particular taste in videos. I have stale old accounts for other Google stuff but I never use them and don't care about any of it except to browse videos. Google still keeps demanding my cell phone number. constantly. I use my real with the youtube account but I actually don't want anyone to see anything I do there.
Google's opinion that it should be my world is quite obnoxious.
Also, I used to love making throw-away Gmail accounts for various spam purposes. Now, my cell phone # is associated with 3 accounts so I can't make anymore.