There’s a struggle going on at the moment between the world’s biggest internet company and its users over the right to be pseudonymous or anonymous online.
Google is facing a growing backlash over a policy that effectively forces people to use their “real names” on its new social media service, Google+.
At first Google deleted several accounts set up with pseudonyms or online handles. When this turned into a PR disaster, it tried a different approach, but with the same end point in mind. Whatever your reasons, however legitimate your concerns, revealing your real name to the world is a condition of using their service.
This has taken some of the shine off the factory-fresh social network.
It’s reminded many of the catastrophic handling of privacy issues in its last attempt at getting on the social media bandwagon, Google Buzz.
Some users are furious. Many argue that their pseudonymity is necessary because speaking under their real names would endanger their employment, their relationships, or even their personal safety. A website, my.nameis.me, showcases the concerns of those who feel they can only speak freely under a pseudonym, because of their fears of harassment, discrimination, physical harm, and in some jurisdictions, arrest and punishment up to and including execution.
Testimonies there show that it is the most marginalised who have the most to lose. Part of their indignation arises from the arrogance of large internet firms who seem to be trying to change the rules of online speech, and thus remove the protections people have enjoyed for decades.
An incensed blog post from danah boyd characterised this as an “abuse of power”.
This is part of what are being called the nym wars, a genuine free speech battle overlooked by some in Australia who are currently too busy defending Rupert Murdoch’s right to own 150 newspapers.
The often crude privilege-blindness of the other side of the debate was given expression last week by Facebook’s former marketing director, Randi Zuckerberg (who left the company to launch a social media firm called RtoZ Media), who said:
I think anonymity on the internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.
What she failed to consider was that many “hide behind anonymity” online because of very real risks to them and their families.
Similar arguments are made frequently in this country by some journalists who are irritated by pseudonymous online critics. Indeed, it’s the same sentiment that was expressed in justifying the “outing” of the pseudonymous “Grog” as Greg Jericho by The Australian last year.
Coming from the profession that should be most committed to free speech, it’s pretty ugly. The idea seems to be that operating under their real names will make people moderate their criticisms. Whichever way you look at it, it’s an attempt to limit people’s speech.
A lot of people making these complaints are relatively new to online debate — we can hope that they will toughen up and see that the odd flaming is the price we pay for a relatively free flow of information.
Meanwhile, we need to reflect on what the “nym wars” show us: that the most powerful internet giants will actively erode our freedoms when it suits their interests. How should we respond?
Anonymity will not go away on on the Internet, because the Internet has always made it easy to create your own pseudonym. Even before the world wide web came along, users were using nyms to communicate with each other using email and news groups.
Randi Zuckerberg wants anonymity on the Internet to go away, and for one reasons only: it’s hard to target advertisements to pseudonymous consumers.
I’ve never really grasped the issue with pseudonyms online. For all practical purposes of public debate, ‘Grog’ (to take a recent famous example) is a real person in their own right, with just as much interest in maintaining their reputation and credibility as anyone. Surely it makes no difference to the reader whether ‘Grog’ actually appears on any birth certificate. Unless indulging in sockpuppetry, what is the problem with ‘Grog’ being entirely decoupled from ‘Greg Jericho’?
I think people tend to lose sight of what Google is: a company. One of the largest advertising companies in the world, in fact.
If Google wants to build a social network where users have to use their real name, it’s completely within its rights to. If you don’t like it, don’t sign up.
Look at this board, very few post with their real names…..
Isn’t there a middle ground here that isn’t being observed? There are two components to a social networking profile.
a. Company X wants to know who you are. You have a direct relationship with that company so to pay for use of that service, you provide personal data. Now, there’s nothing really wrong with this from my perspective so long that the company takes all necessary steps to protect that data and not propagate it without permission (basic privacy constraints). Having real data may also be useful for enforcing terms of service or escalating certain issues to local authorities, etc. whatever.
*fair is a relative term in this case. It depends how much you value your personal data against the services being provided.
b. Company X requires you to publish your personal details including your name to the world. This is the daft bit. How you present yourself to others using this service should not be constrained by the company (subject of course to reasonable rules and regs, i.e. impersonation of others for the purpose of defrauding etc blah). But for the majority, a pseudonym should be a perfectly decent way for people on the web to look you up and know you by. Every single piece of private information should remain under your control even if Company X is the custodian of it.
So, my position is that I am happy to share the info according to point a, provided the services are worth the value of my personal data to Company X. But if Company X required point b – public exposure of my data, they can go get stuffed.
I actually think that no company should be allowed to freely propagate private data publicly even indirectly by limiting a user’s ability to specify a pseudonym. Hopefully, any privacy legislation that is implemented in the future has provisions for this sort of thing.
But this is the nuanced position that should be promoted – it would be a lot easier for people to see sense on this issue if articles took a balanced view, acknowledging the relationship between user and company independently from the relationship between user data and the public. It would go further than yet another reactive article.