Facebook Apologizes to LGBT Community and Promises Changes to Real Name Policy

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/01/facebook-apologizes-to-lgbt-community-and-promises-changes-to-real-name-policy/

by Uhhrrr • 12 years ago

50 58 12 years ago

Uhhrrr3• 12 years ago

I can't figure out how they think they're going to verify that "Sister Roma" is really being used by Sister Roma.

Also, this combination of sentences makes no sense: "Part of what’s been so difficult about this conversation is that we support both of these individuals, and so many others affected by this, completely and utterly in how they use Facebook. [...] First, it’s part of what made Facebook special in the first place, by differentiating the service from the rest of the internet where pseudonymity, anonymity, or often random names were the social norm."

So they utterly, completely support pseudonyms, except when they're pseudonymous, anonymous, or random?

sp3323• 12 years ago

They only crack down on accounts that have been reported by other Facebook users. So it's usually not a problem if you're not abusing the anonymity. Obviously there are minority groups who are more at risk of being maliciously reported, and it looks like that's the change here.

epochwolf3• 12 years ago

So it's usually not a problem if you're not abusing the anonymity.

This is incorrect for some communities, I have a lot of friends who are furries and their accounts get banned for not having real names all the time. For example, my Epoch Wolf account got banned years ago.

andrewfong• 12 years ago

The test is whether you use that pseudonym in real life, where "real life" generally means "not the Internet". Note that there's an implicit judgement here that online interactions are fundamentally different from offline ones, which might not necessarily be accurate, but that's been part of Facebook's approach to social networking from day one.

I have no idea how'd you actually enforce this though. I can't think of a robust way to tell whether "Star-Lord" is how you introduce yourself on a first date or just your preferred pseudonym while playing video games.

lizard• 12 years ago

Anecdotally, I picked up the nickname "Lizard" from friends well before I started using it online.

During my first year or so of college there were several people who admit to only having known me as "Lizard" as that was just how some friends introduced us. Facebook was still fairly new and small then so (I don't believe) there were many people trying to find "Lizard" on Facebook, but aside from a comment in my About (which would only help after they already found me) there was no reference to the only name some people knew me by.

I don't use the nickname offline much any more (though it's useful in busy restaurants to avoid confusion with other people who share my real name, and can prompt some interesting stories or conversations too) and I'm fairly certain the people I still interact with offline all know my real name.

Would/Should Facebook accept this nickname? Still? It doesn't really matter to me any more as I'd just assume be able to keep separate identities unless I want someone to know both. But for some people this nickname is synonymous with my real name and I will respond equivalently to either.

bertil2• 12 years ago

Note that there's an implicit judgement here that online interactions are fundamentally different from offline ones, which might not necessarily be accurate, but that's been part of Facebook's approach to social networking from day one.

I think that what actually happened was that Facebook impressive feat was that is was able to merge the two — and wants to keep representing relations that have depth. I dislike the use of the word “real” for those, but it corresponds to a easy to sort judgement.

The fact that we have only one word to split the two: 'pseudonymous' explains the discrepancy mention above you. Yishang Wong made great points about that on Quora a while ago. “Snoop Dog” or “Sister Roma“ are established nom-de-scene, “phreak2345” is a temporary handle.

mandeepj• 12 years ago

Please help me with this real name thing. How facebook or google will know whether the name I just entered is my real name or not?

benologist• 12 years ago

- Your friends and family tagged you as someone else

- Your name is abnormal

- Your name is different on websites using Facebook Connect

- Your name is different in peoples' address books / phones

roywiggins• 12 years ago

Some people have more than one real name. Heck, I know people with three or four plausible "real names."

jleader2• 12 years ago

They don't know, they guess, based on some heuristic algorithm.

In Google's case, their algorithm informed my son that the name on his birth certificate is not a "real name", and forced him to pick another one (he kept his real name as his nickname, and chose his more popular middle name as his first name, keeping his real last name). According to http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager, his real first name is the 280th most popular in the US. http://howmanyofme.com/search/ says there are nearly 10,000 people with his first name, and a bit less than 4,000 with his last name in the US. But Google says it's not his real name.

bdamm• 12 years ago

I think it's awesome that you named your son Voyager and also gave him a "normal" middle name.

callahad• 12 years ago

They won't necessarily know, but the consequences can be really, really shitty if you get flagged (correctly or incorrectly) for violating a real name policy.

Check out this blog post: https://stilgherrian.com/only-one-name/right-google-you-stup...

Australian guy has the full, legal name "Stilgherrian." Google+ eventually flags his account has having a fake name, and suspends him.

Now, imagine you have an uncommon name, and you've been using Facebook Connect to log into a bunch of sites. One day, your account gets suspended. Not only have you lost access to your social connections, but you've also been locked out of those third party sites. Because Facebook didn't think your name was "real" enough. That sucks for you, and it sucks for the businesses you were Connecting with.

If it was your real name, you may be able to provide passport scans and other documents to recover your account. If it was a pseudonym, you may be completely locked out.

It's also really, really fucking hard to make assumptions about what constitutes a name, unless you only want to do business with Westerners: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...

It's far easier, and more respectful, to give people the agency to determine what they should be called, and be done with it.

vlucas2• 12 years ago

I guess this is a win for the LGBT community, but I can't help but think that this is a bad thing for Facebook and it's users overall. This could lead to Facebook losing it's main edge in having "trusted" and "verified" users who actually are who they say they are. I guess we'll see how this pans out in the long run.

faitswulff• 12 years ago

I'm not sure that Facebook actually has that edge, considering that you can buy likes and accounts quite easily online.

opendais2• 12 years ago

If you believe that, you are buying into their marketing.

I have multiple @lavabit.com facebook accounts under false names I used for dev purposes that are still open and active. The email address doesn't even work anymore and they live on.

That isn't counting all the bots.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/startup-claims-80-of-its-fa...

I doubt its really as high as 80% but I would bet if they saw 80%, its at least double digit percentage wise.

vlucas2• 12 years ago

No system is perfect, but Facebook's "real names only" stance does work for the most part. I would bet the number of fake users and accounts as a percentage is much less overall than other platforms.

Also as noted by others here, they only respond/catch you if you're reported/flagged by another user.

callmeed• 12 years ago

Especially since other companies use Facebook as part of their trust + ID platform, like AirBnB (https://www.airbnb.com/trust)

notahacker• 12 years ago

I get friend requests from fake accounts several times a year, and every German I know on Facebook uses a pseudonym. "Likes" can be bought for a cent. One of my longest standing friendships is with a pub (it's outlived the friendship with David Beckham, someone impersonating one of my lecturers, and a flatmate's cuddly toy).

I didn't have too many qualms about giving a P2P loan to someone with a real looking Facebook profile under an obviously jokey pseudonym.

I'm not convinced Sister Ray and her extravagantly dressed friends who actually use their identities are really in danger of bringing the system to its knees.

seanflyon• 12 years ago

I'm not convinced Sister Ray and her extravagantly dressed friends who actually use their identities are really in danger of bringing the system to its knees.

Sister Ray and her ilk are not bad actors, so of course they are not going to bring the system to its knees. The concern is that facebook will not be able to distinguish between bad actors and people like Sister Ray.

Uhhrrr3• 12 years ago

It's only a win for that community in the sense of demonstrating that they can make FB blink. In all practical senses it is meaningless. So far their scheme for authenticating pseudonyms is vaporware.

Meanwhile, I know multiple people who have had their pseudonymous accounts suspended in the past day.

EddieS• 12 years ago

I can't seem to understand why people are making such a big issue out of this? Its just their name, not like end of the world!

Smudge4• 12 years ago

Believe it or not, there are still people in the world who are victims of violence, abuse, and/or hatred, for whom revealing their legal name, or allowing their online identities to be revealed in searches for their name, might mean putting themselves in unnecessary danger.

pavel_lishin• 12 years ago

Says a person who did not register for HN with their full legal name.

What do you have to hide?

Sanddancer• 12 years ago

I come from an emotionally abusive family. Having them lie, ridicule, etc, were par for the course growing up. I've left them behind, however, have not changed my legal name for various reasons. Because of this, my family has stalked me, has lied about there being deaths in the family to try to get me to talk to them in order to continue their emotionally manipulative bullshit, and otherwise tried to pull me back into their petty gamesmanship. When I had a real name account on facebook, they had found me after a week to try to continue their crap. Being able to be pseudonymous is the only way I can keep in touch with people I actually care about, even with my family hundreds of miles away from me.

jonah5• 12 years ago

Sad to hear this.

As evidenced by your experience (and may others) this issue is not relegated to drag queens and any solutions should be available to anyone.

epochwolf3• 12 years ago

More people in real life know me by Epoch Wolf than by my real name. It's the name I've chosen for myself. It's also unique. No one else in the world had that name when I first used it 8 years ago.

It's my primary identity among my friends.

But, I don't want to change my legal name. It's easier to deal with my fellow americans having have a good, strong, and above all normal first name and a properly romanized last name with a european flavor. Being normal, white male with a normal, white male name is a Good Thing™ in most of America.

Also, my family would probably have their own objections.

kolev2• 12 years ago

Unfortunately most people are weak and have found no meaning of life outside of whining! Life is so damned short, names and labels are meaningless and irrelevant to your physical existence; they are distractions and of no purpose to our civilization. Fuck (excuse my French, but I just can't help it), even if we ban names and assign a random number to each of us, people will still whine if their ID lacks their "lucky number" or boyfriend's DOB, and so on! This civilization is going nowhere. God, please, secure-trash this universe and reboot!

lewispollard• 12 years ago

Life is so damned short, names and labels are meaningless and irrelevant to your physical existence; they are distractions and of no purpose to our civilization

So why bother with restrictive naming policies?

jonah5• 12 years ago

I really don't get this issue.

It's one thing if you present as your non-biological gender full-time. (Transgender, transvestite, etc.)

TBH, I haven't been following it closely, but this current issue seems to be about Drag personas. Totally different.

If you're John Smith at your desk job and Sister Roma on Saturday Nights, that's a persona. Same as if I did standup as "The Science Guy".

Setup a business page for that persona or whatever. (Unless you're going to allow anyone to setup any accounts they want to.)

Smudge4• 12 years ago

drag personas != standup personas, unless you're promoting your drag identity as a business (?)

I'd equate it more to simply having multiple identities. Some people know you as John Smith. Others know you as Sister Roma. When they try to find you on Facebook, maybe you don't want the two linked in any way. Why should John Smith be managing a business page called "Sister Roma" (or vice versa)?

muglug• 12 years ago

Not just about drag personas – it's also about people who might be transitioning, but haven't legally changed their name yet.

It's about being able to choose how you appear to your friends, which is something that's perfectly acceptable to do socially (at least in progressive parts of the US).

jonah5• 12 years ago

Yes, as my comment said.

akbar501• 12 years ago

The core of the issue is discrimination, threats of violence, and so on.

A comic would not face discrimination, attacks, etc. while the people affected by this FB policy could/would be affected negatively.

IMO, this is a key difference.

SwellJoe2• 12 years ago

As a (presumably) gender-normative person, you can't be expected to "get this issue". But, hopefully, with a bit more knowledge you'll begin to get it and understand why it matters, and can genuinely put people in danger.

There are many parts of the world, including in the United States, where hate crimes against transgendered people are common. This includes cities that we like to think of as progressive and gay friendly. Trans people have been beaten, and even murdered, simply for being trans. So, to be trans in the US, and in many other places, is to live in fear that the wrong person will discover your identity, where you live, etc.

Further, drag personas may very well be the primary social identity of a person. Their friends know them by this name and identity, and may not know of any other. But, when they go to work, go shopping, etc., they may have very different persona that they keep separate from their social identity for their own safety and well-being. People can still lose their jobs for being trans. Trans people can be, and often are, treated very poorly by medical practitioners (particularly poor folks who have fewer options for their medical care). Trans people can be treated very poorly by the legal system in child custody cases. Likewise, trans people arrested for crimes often receive stiffer sentences than non-trans folks, and may experience discrimination and humiliation in the prison system. It is dangerous, on so many levels, to be openly trans.

Transgender is recognized to be a real thing, and not a "disorder", by every major psychological and medical organization in the developed world. But, the popular opinion has not caught up with the science. And, so people who are trans have significant hurdles to leading a happy life free of being bullied, preyed upon, and generally having a lot more challenges than folks who identify as the sex of the body they were born with.

In short, saying, "Setup a business page for that persona or whatever." ignores the reality that trans people live with every day. Revealing that one is trans to the world at large dramatically increases the risk of being trans.

It sucks that our world and society is this way. Someone should be able to dress up fancy on a Saturday night, without fear of being beaten for it, fired from their job, risk losing custody of children, or be denied appropriate medical care. But, we don't live in a world where that's true. Those are the realities of being one of the most hated minorities.

Facebook's policy made it harder for trans people to exist in peace. So, the apology is warranted, and the clarification of the policy is useful. Though, I think it probably doesn't go far enough. And, I think their reasons for being so insistent have as much to do with the value of knowing someone's legal identity, as it does with their assertion that it is the "primary mechanism we have to protect millions of people every day, all around the world, from real harm."

jonah5• 12 years ago

Oh come on, as a (presumably) gender-normative person, I'm somewhat insulted you assume my ignorance.

You also seem to skip over the part of my comment where I largely agree with you. (Though I didn't spell it out explicitly, I assumed it was clear what I mean. Apologies.)

What I was trying to do is draw the distinction between being trans and being a drag performer.

The issue I see is whether an individual can have personas. Should PartyBro045 be forced to present as BusinessDude75 online? (There are valid reasons as well as potential consequences to do this - though they likely don't reach the same level of concern.)

Does that issue get the same attention? No. Understood.

Whatever policy is put in place, it needs to be applied consistently both between and across gender lines.

autism_hurts2• 12 years ago

Of course this is the top comment on this topic. Of course.

Bravo, HN.

epochwolf3• 12 years ago

Setup a business page for that persona or whatever.

Yeah... this doesn't work very well. I'm not transgendered or gay but I have a fairly weird hobby that has some parallels. I dress up in an animal costume on the weekends.

My primary social identity is Epoch Wolf. Most of my friends (100+ people I'm in regular contact with) know me as such. I actually answer better to "Epoch" than my real name.

Facebook forces me to use my real name. My Epoch Wolf account was banned years ago. Because of this, my family, my church, and my coworkers have seen pictures of me dressed up as a pink lynx at a furry convention.

I don't have the option of not using facebook. If I want to keep in contact with my friends OR MY CHURCH, I need to use it. Church events are only posted on facebook!

The only reason this is tolerable is:

* I have a lot of self-confidence.

* I am a straight, white, cis-gendered male with a college degree working a white collar job.

* I have an excellent relationship with my parents.

* My pastor has been to anime conventions.

* My coworkers are younger people who also have their own weird hobbies.

* I don't partake in the sexual aspects of furry fandom that the media and 4chan like to make a big deal about.

Because me dressing up in animal costumes is the only weird thing I do, I can get away with it. Everyone I know sees me as a normal person with a weird hobby.

Far too many of my friends have been severely judged by their parents or churches for being gay or having a weird hobby. Some of them have been kicked out by their parents and others live with constant emotional abuse and struggle with crippling depression.

Sorry, this got a little rambly. If I had more time I would write a shorter letter, etc. Anyway, it takes a lot of things going for you to be able to openly participate in a sub-culture that's not well looked upon and having that being dismissed so lightly irritates me to no end.

jonah5• 12 years ago

I hear you and agree.

I think what rubs me the wrong way[1] about this issue is treating (or appearing to treat) certain classes of people/needs differently. If drag queens can have personas, but furries can't, that's not cool.

If the push by the LGBTQ* community to win this accommodation for drag queens and trans* folks relaxes the rules for other groups at the same time, that's a good outcome.

[1] Afterwards: Oops, no furry pun intended.

Animats• 12 years ago

Facebook should mark non-real-names as pseudonyms, and offer the ability to block pseudonyms. Most of them will be spammers, after all.

jleader2• 12 years ago

I would expect spammers to choose names at random from a list of common first and last names. Though I sometimes see spam emails with "$FROM" in the From: field!

greenyoda• 12 years ago

The stupidest thing I've seen spammers do (and I see a few examples of this in my junk mail folder every day) is putting my name or e-mail address in the "From:" field (sometimes followed by a few random characters).

bdcravens• 12 years ago

Does this apply to anyone with a strong identity/persona? Street names? 1337 names?

bertil2• 12 years ago

They talk about having a document, presumably by a respectable third party, with that name. I guess for 1337 names, having a conference invite under that name would count. Concert or stand-up flyers for a persona would make sense. I'm less sure about how to have street names written.

In middle school, a student's nickname was “Simpson”; it's hard to explain, but he genuinely looked like he had yellow skin, expression-less face and spiky hair. In a court yard of a hundred student, everyone knew instantly which kid was ‘Simpson’. No one knew his actual name. When he was part of a group of kids who attacked me, it felt really odd to make a report listing his name, even after the headmaster had shown me on the photobook that that was his civil name. I don't remember if his nickname appeared on the report, but I guess any documented evidence like that would work.

autism_hurts2• 12 years ago

I appreciate Facebook doing the right thing and showing a "soul" on this.

Smudge4• 12 years ago

The issue of real name policies has come up many times before, most noticeably with Google+. From what I've seen, people tend to fall into these three camps (guess which one I fall into):

- I don't get it. Why does it matter. Just use your real name. It makes everything easier for the rest of us.

- I get it. Pseudonymity is important. But it's not worth the added noise / decreased quality on this site, so take it elsewhere.

- I get it. Pseudonymity is not only important, but something that should be freely available to anyone who wants to participate in this service. We all have different identities depending on context, and not everyone maps their legal name to all (or any) of their identities, so let's be sure to make room for those other identities too.

That's obviously an overgeneralization. But the response from camp #3 is definitely what caused Google to backtrack. It's interesting that Google's policy (only permitting your legal name or something close to it) was originally more draconian than Facebook's, who seem to only care that the name you use is the on people would know you by in "real life."

dmckeon• 12 years ago

Cox> Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name. The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life.

The current problem is Facebook's assumption that people have one "authentic name they use in real life".

Real people may choose to be known by various names in various contexts, without intent to defraud or to be a "bad actor". They may or may not want those names to be connected among the different contexts.

Facebook has hundreds of millions of users, but apparently is not yet able to realize that the simple policies that worked well for small homogenous populations (US college students) do not scale to to huge heterogenous populations (the rest of the planet).

Facebook, allow users to be known by whatever various multiple names the users like. Allow them to connect those names, or keep them separate. Put whatever measures in place you need to to support that (perhaps a per-user waiting period that doubles with each additional active name or profile, or allow people to register names or profiles for a small fee, perhaps ~US$5 or $10 times number of names per person.)

Expect some gaming of the system, and come down hard on bad actors and abusers, perhaps using a names registration fee to make dealing with bad actors costly for bad actors, profitable and easier for Facebook, and not a complete pain for people who are false positives or troll targets.

Imagine the revenues when millions of gamers want to register their in-game(s) persona name(s). This has worked well for domain registrars, what are you waiting for?

RangerScience• 12 years ago

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...

lotsofmangos• 12 years ago

Facebook may have dodged a bullet. When the drag queens leave, the party's probably over.

A_COMPUTER• 12 years ago

Are they going to let you have two accounts, because a lot of people with these names don't really just completely discard the other one? I doubt it. I don't think there's a real fix because the problem is facebook's business needs, not their name policy. They want to know the one physical body behind the name, and at least for me, I don't even want Facebook knowing my two identities are the same person.

yuhong• 12 years ago

I am not for real name policies, but I am for looking for better solutions than anonymity if possible. I am thinking of startupsanonymous.com for example.

Facebook Apologizes to LGBT Community and Promises Changes to Real Name Policy

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