Real-Name Policies: The War Against Pseudonymity

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Real-name policies aren’t new, but they are becoming exponentially harmful.

In today’s world, they are worsened by monopolistic platforms, increased mass surveillance, AI technologies, and facial recognition capabilities.

Moreover, the impact of real-name policies is about to be severely aggravated by the arrival of age-verification regulations.

Real-name policies (explicit and implicit ones) are harming everyone’s privacy, but are also incredibly dangerous to democracy, silence political dissidents, censor activists and journalists, expose vulnerable people to violence, and block access to essential resources for the people who need it the most.

It’s time to fight back against this unsafe and discriminatory privacy-invasive practice.

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Fantastic (and sobering) article.

I just hope Fediverse apps remain available for people who want to replace mainstream social media with something else. As you recommend, Mastodon is indeed a great alternative.

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That’s why you should give your children 10 first names, so they can use 10 different “real name” identities without lying :smiley:

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Even better if those names are extremely nickname-able! Like Theodore (Theo/Teddy/Ted) or Alexander (Alex/Al/Alec/Lex) or Elizabeth (Liz/Lizzy/Beth/Eliza) or Catherine (Kate/Katie/Cathy).

/j

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SWIM thinks this is a great use for a novelty ID. Though it’s worth mentioning that you should pick well, because they disable your ability to change your name once you go this route.

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Lost my Facebook account like 5 years ago, not because of trying to hide my identity, just because I was trans

They claim that you should use the name you are known by in the community, very trans inclusive by the sounds of it. so I had my real name, which at the time, wasn’t my legal first name, but it’s what I was known by everyone irl, so fits their policy

Until they locked my account, demanding government ID, and refusing to return my account because my legal name was different

(Tbh, good riddance Facebook)

But my lovely country is now mandating age verification for any social media site, even this forum would be included because it’s primary purpose is communication

Major impact on privacy for everyone, major impact for transgender adults who should be able to use social media without outing their deadname

My government claims you won’t need to upload ID unless AI decides you are young. Which means that by design, every single 17 year old (age limit for social media in the new laws) will be required to upload ID to prove they aren’t 16 anymore, a whole generation (and all future generations) without any online privacy, and that’s just the kids, ignoring all the adults who will be falsely flagged as children and have to provide ID

Now into “the government wouldn’t do that, right?” territory: How long until law enforcement starts asking companies to manually flag accounts as underage, just to trick the account owner into disclosing their ID?

Legally, the age verification ids can only be used for age verification and nothing else. But legally, law enforcement can subpoena any data a company has about an individual, which one of those laws do you think will override the other?

Sorry, my first post here is a rant

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Thank you for joining our forum Flying Potato, and thank you for sharing your experience on this :yellow_heart:

What you’ve experienced is horrible, and I am very sorry you went through this. Unfortunately, it seems many trans people have suffered the same fate in the uncaring hands of Facebook.

I personally think these kind of policies should be deemed illegal for discriminatory reasons. There is absolutely no legal justification for Facebook to require people use and share their legal names. And because of how monopolistic Facebook has become, moreover in some regions of the world, using Facebook isn’t always a personal choice for many.

You are also right to connect Age Verification policies to this. It is indeed closely intertwined. Letting AI being the decider to estimate age and who is required to provide an official ID is horrible for so many reasons as well.

Legislators often use these kind of arguments to soften the blow and try to silence legitimate criticism. We should not let them.