Most of my Facebook friends are cautious people who are sensible of the implications of an online profile, so I can’t remember any of them having had difficulties or embarassing moments due to oversharing. They also know their way around the privacy settings and how to hide their profile or friend list from strangers (or even friends).
One thing, however, that irritates me when browsing the friend list, are the friends that use fake names or shortened forms such as Ma Ny or Lo La. Combined with a photo of their dog or a random sunset, it makes me think for a second: “Who is this person again?” Guys, this is a Facebook! A collection of pictures and names of the people I know. I think of it as a dynamic extension of my address book, in which I also prefer having full, real names (unless the person acts under a different, well-known pseudonym, but that’s a different story …).
Now you may argue that you’re doing it for privacy reasons, and I can see the noble intentions behind it, but I believe that changing one’s name is not the right strategy to protect one’s privacy. It could even invoke a false sense of security.
A fake name is not the best way to protect you from stalkers, your boss or other annoying people:
Facebook has privacy settings that allow you to hide your profile from search, both in Facebook and on external search engines. You can also limit messages to friends and new friend requests to friends of friends, or block certain people. I believe these are better methods to prevent yourself from being found and stalked than changing your name, which may also annoy your friends.
A fake name doesn’t do much to hide your identity from Facebook:
If you think your enemy is not your boss but Mark Zuckerberg, think again. Facebook’s business model is to take your demographics and the observed behavior on Facebook and attached sites, e.g. your “likes”, and serve advertisements that fit your interests so you hopefully click on them. Is your name relevant for this?! Not much. If you still think Facebook shouldn’t know your name, because it allows matching with your real world identity, think about your email address or other associated accounts. Do they contain your name? If yes, Facebook could get it if they really want it. Which also means, if you really want to build a fake identity (which I cannot endorse, of course) on Facebook, you need more than just a modified name.
Recently, the blue Skype notification box popped out from my system tray. Previously I had only seen it when someone chose to add me on Skype, but this time it was something else:
An invitation to Facebook! How has this landed in my Skype?! In my Skype settings it says now that I can receive alerts from Facebook, but I don’t remember giving that option in the first place!
There’s also the next screen to show “my Facebook friends”, and this is the scary part:
I am already on Facebook but with a different email address, so there was no way for Skype to match my existing Facebook account. Therefore, the people listed there might be from my Skype contact list, but here they’re listed with their Facebook name, image and link to their profile! It seems that somehow Facebook must have allowed Skype to match the email addresses of their users!!
Has anybody else seen those alerts?! There’s something going on and I don’t know whether I “like” it …
To many critics of the loss of privacy especially on the Internet, it has been told that it could be a good thing. Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington, for example, wrote a piece about reputation being dead and said it’s time to overlook our indiscretions. He thinks that we will just get used to having bad things published about ourselves and everybody will become more relaxed about things that used to create a big fuss.
I think he could actually be right. The norms of what is considered as socially accepted are always changing, and even today you will notice that they are different all over the world. A simple and comprehensible example for everyone are the interactions between unmarried men and women in different cultures. If you are a guy, and a girl who is your friend comes to stay at your place for the night and even sleeps in your room, it won’t be a big deal if you’re living in a Western urban area. In a more traditional or rural place you may not even invite the girl over to your place in daytime because you fear your reputation in the neighborhood and things that they might assume about you. Please, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be offensive to a certain culture or trying to spread Western liberal values all over the world (in contrary, there are many things I would not like being spread)! From my experience, however, I have found that in a more rigid and limited environment, many people are not really different at all. They will still live the lifestyle they want. The only difference is: They are hiding it! Things are happening in secrecy. To stick to my example, you may still invite the girl to your place but you will make sure you both won’t enter the house at the same time so nobody sees you together. Or you will lie and tell everybody that she is your sister (it happens!). I believe in being open about who you are and what you do, I don’t like hiding things which are - according to my own values - not a big deal. Secrecy and hiding leads to lies, and lies are the killer of trust, which in tern is the basis of valuable human relationships.
So, does this mean that if we all lose our reputation by not being able to hide things it is a good cause, because the society will slowly accept us as who we are and in what we do, whatever it is? Yes! But it is up to us to make the decision to be open and transparent about ourselves. If we don’t want to that, we should be able to keep our small private secrets. And certainly it is not Mark Zuckerberg who should decide that making everything public is the new “Social Norm” that everyone has to follow. My example may not be something that would typically end on the Internet, but I think you’re getting my point and can draw your conclusions for other issues.
You must have heard of the following statement: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I would like to adapt it for my opinion about privacy: “I disapprove of your secrets, but I will defend to the death your right to hide them.”
LukasRos' Blog