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Comment by steven2012 | Hacker News Reader

steven2012

Except for Facebook and LinkedIn, I haven't used my real name and any personally identifiable information on the Internet in 20 years, since I realized that everything I wrote on Usenet would be there forever. There is no value with having the things I say potentially used against me for the rest of my life.

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I do think it's a bit odd it's considered obvious that children should avoid putting any information online that could reveal their real identity/location/et c., but when people turn 18 it's suddenly not eyebrow-raising for them to have a bunch of social media accounts and such under their real names.

Mind you, such caution used to be common sense behavior for everyone. Then Facebook[1] happened. The second Eternal September.

It also seems to have become common for professionals to promote themselves under their real names without keeping separate, anonymous accounts for non-business activities.

When it goes well they're growth-hacking (puke) their careers, using all their twitter followers and likes and GitHub projects or whatever to market themselves and/or their services and/or products they're paid to sell. When it goes poorly we get stories like this. Live by the sword, die by the sword. (I don't know that that applies in this case, but it has in others)

The situation in the article is really shitty, of course, and I don't mean to minimize that. I'm just puzzled that throwing your real name on every corner of the Internet stopped drawing derision and advice to cut it out, at some point. It's why the calls for reducing online anonymity to end online harassment by strangers strike me as such a strange approach—the absolutely undisputed solution used to be more anonymity! It's a major cultural shift from the very recent past, but I don't see it brought up very often.

[1] Not just Facebook, obviously, but the timing fits.

The reason why Google, Facebook, Twitter, NSA, etc, want to reduce online anonymity is so that they can do a better job in tracking your behavior and advertise to you. They are simply packaging it as an anti-harrassment reason, when in fact that's a complete lie. As you said, the only solution is complete anonymity.

I'm the opposite. I use my real name, or real enough, everywhere. It makes me think twice before hitting enter. Anything I say I'm backing up, for better or worse, with my identity. I may someday regret this decision. So far so good.

I do the same thing, I use my real name as my username on all social media sites including Reddit. I always think to myself, is this something I want permanently associated with my real identity?

It could obviously backfire. You say something that you think is fine, someone else gets offended, and they know exactly who you are. But generally, I think using your real name makes people more accountable for what they say online.

The problem with this approach is you have no idea what will become wrongthink in the future. In 2008, opposing gay marriage was a relatively mainstream idea. In 2014 someone was fired for donating to an anti-gay marriage campaign. In 2015 it might be acceptable for one to express wariness of expanding the H-1B visa program, but in 2020 will it be so?

You at least admit that it might backfire on you. I try to tell people, you don't get a choice in how people interpret what you say. If an angry mob decides to take one tweet out of context, your good intentions won't save you.

Same here. I rotate my online username on forums and online comment systems every few months: https://fakena.me.

> I rotate my online username on forums and online comment systems every few months

You might want to rotate your current one a little sooner ;-)

Touché!

I am tempted to upvote this with the HN accounts of my desktop, my laptop, my work laptop, my phone, my work phone, my tablet and my TV. ;)

Separation is good opsec.

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