Why Facebook and Google's Concept of 'Real Names' Is Revolutionary (2011)

Summary: The real name policy of Google and Facebook is an inversion of the real life relationship between identity and speech acts. The article argues that in the real world, an ordinary person’s public utterances have only an ephemeral connection to the identity of the speaker since observers won’t bother to make a durable record of the occurrence. On the other hand, Google Plus and Facebook create a permanent link between every little thing a user has said and the identity of that user.

The problem with this argument is that, irrespective of a real name policy, Google, Facebook, and any other service provider can already create those links since the user agent is essentially a fingerprint (especially when IPv6 is widely deployed). At least the real name policy makes that situation apparent.

Also, the increasing ubiquity of cameras and other sensors does make it likely that someone is going be creating a durable record your public speech acts.