Introduction
“Privacy is dead, and social media holds the smoking gun” - Pete Cashmore
As a social media user, it is important to be cautious of the information we choose to share on our media platforms. We constantly share our name, age, and birthdate to many social media platforms without understanding the importance of such sensitive information. Some social media platforms will allow you to have a preferred name that you’re referred to as or a name that will keep your identity anonymous. However, there have been several social media platforms that have required their users to provide their real name in order to use their services.
The online platforms that have implemented this Real-Name Policy believed it would help improve comments and avoid any unnecessary behavior from users that utilize the comment sections. This “Real Name Policy” is also said to help prevent fake profiles to ensure a victim’s identity is protected. However, I believe that a “Real Name Policy” will not stop people from creating fake profiles to cause harm to other individuals online. This type of mandatory policy will affect the privacy of many users who choose to hide their real name and prefer another name.
Mandatory Real Name Policies on all platforms is unfair because it limits an individual's right to have a reasonable expectation of privacy. An individual should have the right to have a private social media account and should not have to disclose their birth name. This protects the individual from exposing their identity if they are choosing to be private about the information they share online.
Posting of Unnecessary Comments
Trolling is common on many social media platforms. Trollers usually do not tend to identify themselves with their birth name. This allows them to be anonymous and post whatever they want without any accountability for their comments. In 2007, South Korea mandated that all websites that reached over 100k viewers to require them to register with their Birth Name. They hoped to reduce these comments because they believed that these trollers would feel a fear of judgment if they made a negative comment. However, The policy had seemed to only reduce the unnecessary comments to about less than .09%.
Randi Zuckerberg said “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down…” I do agree that people would probably be more careful with their comments if their birth names were to be displayed with their comments. It would prevent people from commenting without thinking thoroughly given that it wouldn’t be anonymous. However, it is important to know that you have a fundamental right of privacy if you choose to be private with your posts.
Information being Exposed
When we register to use the services of a social media platform, we give out our name, age, and date of birth. All this information is very sensitive and it is not safe if we share this information with these platforms. Although one may think this information is safe, you could be at a risk of being doxxed. Personal information such as your home address, phone numbers, and employers can be obtained. Once a person’s information is found, it could be released risking the person's safety.
Not only can your personal information become revealed, but it can also be stolen through Identity theft. This usually occurs when someone uses your name, birth date, or social security number to impersonate you. However, with the ability to control our preferred name, this could help prevent too much information from being revealed.
Conclusion
A Real Name Policy mandate on all websites has both a beneficial impact and a negative impact. A Real Name Policy may prevent people from creating fake accounts and attacking other individuals. This also can help assure that people will start to become accountable for the harmful things they publish on social media. However, I personally believe that we should have the right to be anonymous and have the right to keep my personal information private to a certain extent. Keeping your real name private will allow you to keep your personal life private and avoid unwanted individuals from obtaining that information.
Sources
Feeney, Nolan. “Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg Defends 'Real Names' Policy.” Time, Time, 1 July 2015, time.com/3943322/facebook-real-name-policy-mark-zuckerberg/.
Ferenstein, Gregory. “Surprisingly Good Evidence That Real Name Policies Fail to Improve Comments.” TechCrunch, 29 July 2012, techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/.
Suciu, Peter. “There Isn't Enough Privacy on Social Media and That Is a Real Problem.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Oct. 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2020/06/26/there-isnt-enough-privacy-on-social-media-and-that-is-a-real-problem/?sh=760dbce444f1.
Yale Journal of International Affairs. “Real Names and Responsible Speech: The Cases of South Korea, China, and Facebook.” Yale Journal of International Affairs, Yale Journal of International Affairs, 10 Apr. 2020, www.yalejournal.org/publications/real-names-and-responsible-speech-the-cases-of-south-korea-china-and-facebook.
I think my first thought with Real Names Policies is that it's common sense that we should be implementing them for accountability, but when I take the time to really think about the consequences, I think it does present a real threat. I think trolling and hate comments are bad internet practices of course, but I think that the potential of preventing that is not worth the price of privacy for other good-natured users. People have many different reasons to not want to use their real name, and I think that all should be respected, and because of the more dangerous privacy implications, a Real Name Policy should not be the standard.
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ReplyDeleteJorge, this is a beautiful post. Are we giving up our privacy and the sacrifices we must make to stay interconnected in the world today? Cars, for example, are a driving source of c02 emissions, which directly contribute to more pollution and lowered air quality, yet we must use them daily to commute to work, to our homes, etc. So, privacy could be seen as anything we give up for societal gain. When we invented cameras, for example, we allowed ourselves to capture moments in our lives that would otherwise be lost to time. Yet, we also gave up subconsciously our ability to savor these moments. When you go to a concert example, you will find yourself surrounded by those living in the moment partially but also filming everything on their phone. As such, with privacy, I think, while yes it may be dead, necessary to be a functioning member of our growing technological society.
Hi Jorge!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting! I found your statistic about South Korea to be very interesting. I would have expected negative comments to decrease substantially. I would love to look into other research about online policies to reduce trolling. One thought that came to me when I read your post was, how much of reasonable expectation of privacy do we have when signing up for social media? I understand that social media is extremely prevalent but like Lindsey commented, "no one has to sign up for social media". Personally, I think you forfeit an expectation to privacy when you sign up for social media; however, I think other information that you give a social media company, beside your real name, should have an expectation to remain private. I'd be interested to hear other classmates' thoughts. Thanks for posting!
As mentioned by a couple other people, I also think you give up your reasonable expectation of privacy when you sign up for social media. However, I suppose you could debate over how much of a necessity it is to have social media. I think many people sign up for social media because they feel pressured to, they want to stay in the loop, or they just want to stay connected to the world. People may not want to tell these sites their personal information, but they may need to if they want to use those sites. Personally, I think there are plenty of social media that don't require you to give your real name such that you can avoid those that use real-name policies and still stay connected to the world.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you in regards to anonymity online being important. The 0.09% decrease in hate comments under a real name policy is extremely shocking, but it shows how little regard people have towards social costs of online trolling. Furthermore, even with anonymity, it is still possible to find personal, identifying information about people online, based on what they've posted before. For instance, I trash-talked in a Counter-Strike match two weeks ago, and my teammate stopped playing for a round and returned to read me off my name and the high school I attended. Perhaps trolls would be more cautious if more effort was shown at how easy it is to identify them in real life, even without a real name policy.
ReplyDeletePeople seem to say stupid and offensive things regardless of how anonymous they feel. Tying comments to real names might discourage some people from being hateful online but it may also just put a target on a person's back. Now social media sites have algorithms that hide or automatically delete posts and comments that might be hateful, I think this does a better job at providing a safer internet but possibly at the cost of unfairly suppressing controversial opinions.
ReplyDeleteThis was very well written comment Jorge.
ReplyDeleteI would say that social media companies implementing a real names policy would be a double edged sword. Trolls and anonymity certainly contribute and can create a hostile online environment that contributes to online cyber bullying and harassment. However, I think a real names policy would not fix this problem of online cyber bullying. More and more on social media, I find that troll accounts employ a realistic looking profile, when it turns out to be a bot or parody account intentionally trying to harass and upset people. These people appear real, but are hiding behind an alias. In reality, what can moderation teams at these private companies do to stop this? I think the best way to prevent this online harassment and trolling would be to target potential victims rather than try to hunt down the perpetrators, as there are far too many perpetrators that can spawn constantly. Offering potential victims more enhanced privacy and engagement settings, allowing posts/comments to be easily removed, and comprehensive reporting systems will be the best way to solve this issue. These companies can implement a real names policy, but I don't think this would be the most effective solution.
post* not comment. Woopsies.
DeleteI agree Jorge there is a grey area to this argument.Trolling is very common place in social media and I fully believe that showing you real name could stop you from trolling. And even if they don’t stop trolling they can be reported and held accountable for what they have done. However, some people can threaten the person and where they live and hurt them personally. I believe the real name policy is a good idea because it will make people worry about what bad stuff that mighty get them in trouble.
ReplyDeleteThis was from Jaskehar sorry
ReplyDeleteI agree with what a lot of you are saying. I think that while a real name policy seems like a promising way of reducing hate on the internet, it also has many negative impacts. Having to associate birth name with all online profiles could force a person to reveal more information about themselves than they are comfortable with. Imagine if you went on a medical forum to ask an embarrassing question, and you had to post it under your real name. There are also many topics that people might want to discuss online without it being tracked back to them in real life such as sexuality, political views, or complaints about their job. I think the better solution is to offer space where people can use fake names, but to force them to make profiles that are somehow connected to them (such as by email), so that they can speak freely, but still face some consequences for hate-speech and harassment even if it is just getting the profile shut down.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with your points. I did not necessarily find it suprising that the South Korea policy had little to no effect. The barrier which a phone screen provides can create a major distortion allowing the commentor to ignore that what they are posting is outrageously offensive. I agree that it is more imortant to remain anonymous to protect your personal information so that commenters attacking an individual can only attack with words rather than stealing personal information to create larger problems. However, the issue of cyberbullying is not one necessarily to just ignore because it does benefit from anonymitiy. Overall I agree that anonymity is important to prioritize, but an individual should be able to be linked back to cyberbullying commments in order to keep them accountable, even if it does not necessarily decrease the rate that commenters cyberbully.
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