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Comment by Uhhrrr | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

Huh, every story I had heard so far involved the account getting reported by another user.

Now imagine a troll reporting every furry or LGBTQ user he can find.

I already made that point in my first comment. Sorry if it wasn't clear.

Indeed, it's a problem for any individual or community. You only need one malicious person to ruin FB's idea of pseudonymity.

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