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Comment by mkjones | Hacker News Reader

Hey folks - I work on the Site Integrity team at Facebook. We work to keep people safe from scams, spam, fake accounts, and having their account taken over.

We're always looking for ways to better understand how people represent themselves online and improve the design of our service. We look at the results of this kind of experiment in aggregate - the responses doesn't have any impact on the user account or that of their friends.

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1) The idea of people giving out information about their friends to an anonymous entity such as Facebook is going to result in a considerable increase in paranoia no matter what you say.

2) The claim that real identities result in either greater safety or greater civility has been debunked here quite a number of times here. After all, probably the largest number of people who are using pseudonyms are doing so out of a desire for safety.

I don't want to be Crazy Internet Conspiracy Guy here, but I note this is a somewhat carefully worded response. mkjones did not say "We don't store the individual answers anywhere", "your answers are not recorded" or anything similar. Nor did he/she say "the data is only stored in aggregate", but "we look at the results in aggregate", which is a rather significant difference.

However, there's every chance that's just a case of bad wording. So, mkjones - can you confirm that the option the user selects on the dialog box we're discussing here ("Is this your friend's real name?") is not stored, saved or recorded in any way that could subsequently be connected to that user's account?

First, shame on you and yours for asking people to rat on other people. Do you understand what could happen in the real world?

Next, I am a little sick of this "real name" business since Facebook and Google get it so wrong. I will give a couple of examples.

I grew up on a reservation in the US. Several of my friends have been given "Indian Names". Is that their real name or would Google / Facebook say that it's not valid because it is not a state issued ID. Is Google/Facebook combing the cultures of the world to pick out what they believe?

I do sysadmin work. Several people are named the same as parents / grandparents, but are known by other names. I use what people call them for their accounts not their official id. I would say I am right and have a better grasp of what their name is then someone who only uses official ID. Heck, would Google/Facebook take a tribal ID?

The cases of people trying to get away from a bad situation where Facebook / Google basically provides a target, not a safe place, are too numerous to iterate.

It isn't about the people using Facebook / Google. It is about your customers: the advertisers.

The best way people, especially kids, have to protect their future selves from things they write or post today, is by assuming a fake identity.

Kids are quickly learning that everything on the Internet is forever. Take the option of hiding their identity away from them, and I think they will move to a service that will allow this.

My kids are sick of me harping on this. But now they use different pseudonyms for every site, including Facebook, and I'm proud of them for it.

They rarely use Facebook anymore; it seems it's becoming boring.

Right. You're absolutely NOT trying to put a name on everyone to make more money. Absolutely not. It's all for the users, as one would expect from such a pro-bono, for-the-greater-good company such as Facebook.

I sure hope your response is authentic. You might not use that information now, but you may potentially at a later date, i.e., warn a user to use their real name and if not you're account is suspended until doing so. Facebook's in the information business and now that you're a publicly traded company, the higher ups want to look good on the balance sheet and search is your organizations next step. This seems like a slippery slope to me.

That doesn't mean what you're doing is not inherently sociopathic.

     [mkjones]
     - I do not know this person.
     - I do not think this is a real name

But do you store the data individually?

If, for example, you store that my profile was identified as real by a friend of mine, then you're essentially collecting personal data on me.

And I doubt that I would be informed about this fact, or be able to see it somewhere. (This assumption being based on the previous and ongoing mishandling / incomplete answering of requests under EU data protection law.)

As someone who had the promise of Google Plus completely ruined when the nymwars chased my largely-pseudonymous-on-the-Internet circles away, I plan to be either consistently lying when presented with this "is this their real name?" dialogue box, or simply rolling a die to choose my answer.

Presumably you are storing the individual submissions, even if the reports generated are aggregate.

What safeguards are in place to make sure that the information is not used in the future to target accounts for suspension?

Then why the other three options? Why not just "I don't know this person" or "Ignore this message"?

> We work to keep people safe...

Real name is unsafe, outside of Facebook's control. The unsafe aspects include bullying and robbery, e.g.

Why are you deleting accounts of people who cosplay? It's mostly kids having fun playing dress up and taking photos and making plans to appear at conventions, all while calling themselves by anime-inspired names. When these kids lose their accounts, they also lose their connections with each other, connections which they spent a great deal of time and energy cultivating, and what's even worse is that it's difficult for them to reconnect, after creating new accounts with their real names, because they know each other only by their cosplay names. It's a nonsensical policy, which does little-to-nothing to keep these kids safe, and which rather effectively kills existing social circles.

example: http://japanimeclarinetist.deviantart.com/journal/They-delet...

article: http://dailydot.com/news/facebook-purges-cosplay-accounts (Facebook Purges Cosplay Accounts)(08/21/12)

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