Playstation 4 and your real name

[AlpsStranger]

But is it necessarily better? "More civil" sounds wonderful, but it can also be dull, conformist, and dishonest.

Being less inhibited isn't always bad. To turn the tables a little: I think you guys have to admit that anonymity can spark interesting discussions that might not take place if everyone were trying to "save face."

 

[Farm Boy]

I would say you would still want to be nicier, or at least more civil, because you want to protect your good name and save yourself from embrassment. Not every stick need be as fatal as losing your spouse and employment.

That stick can be though. Just not necessarily for the people you seem to want to target.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Right, and who chooses the size and power of the stick? The mob. It still comes back to mob justice.

 

[ace99]

A small price to pay for silencing lolberterians and neo-Nazis.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I'm going to go ahead and assume you're being somewhat facetious, but I definitely understand the joke. People will behave in a more mainstream, acceptable, within the pale manner if they have to own up to what they say.

I get that. I just don't want that. I want to hear people's insane ideas that they wouldn't express face to face. I want the flat earth forum to exist. I want creationists to let their freak flags fly in the face of all reason. I understand that not everybody does, but I sincerely hope there will always be a place for anonymous discussion. It's so much livelier than "accountable" discussion, even if it isn't always nice or pretty.

 

[ace99]

I'm going to go ahead and assume you're being somewhat facetious, but I definitely understand the joke. People will behave in a more mainstream, acceptable, within the pale manner if they have to own up to what they say.

I get that. I just don't want that. I want to hear people's insane ideas that they wouldn't express face to face. I want the flat earth forum to exist. I want creationists to let their freak flags fly in the face of all reason. I understand that not everybody does, but I sincerely hope there will always be a place for anonymous discussion. It's so much livelier than "accountable" discussion, even if it isn't always nice or pretty.

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/

Free speech protects you from government reprisal. It is both just and fair that you should be heaped with scorn by private parties for things like the above.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Just for the sake of the discussion, I'll do your own work for you (hoping it will at least useful for others, I don't expect anything from you).

You mean you finally got around to making your arguments for yourself instead of telling me to google them up? Thanks, you saved me some effort there.

I'll read through all the comments I missed while in class later.

Good to see now that I can add pointless spam posts that boil down to 'you're an idiot/dense/stupid' to the list of noninfractable things I can post here. I'm kind of excited really.

 

[AlpsStranger]

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/

Free speech protects you from government reprisal. It is both just and fair that you should be heaped with scorn by private parties for things like the above.

And be unable to get a job or pay your bills because the Mob decides your opinion deserves to be censored. How is that different or better than government reprisal? Why not just allow government reprisal if we're going to allow its exact equivalent?

Seriously, if we're all going to "live connected" whether we like it or not then just shred the first amendment now and save yourself the delusion. Constantly being tied down by other people's opinion of your opinions is not free speech in any sense but technically.

 

[BvBPL]

But is it necessarily better? "More civil" sounds wonderful, but it can also be dull, conformist, and dishonest.

Being less inhibited isn't always bad. To turn the tables a little: I think you guys have to admit that anonymity can spark interesting discussions that might not take place if everyone were trying to "save face."

Maybe.

However, many of those conversation could have also occured, and would be much more pleasant to read and participate in, had they been more civil. Civility doesn't mean boring. In fact, it can be much more interesting and fufilling to convey a contrary viewpoint through civil discourse than through more base means.

I get that. I just don't want that. I want to hear people's insane ideas that they wouldn't express face to face.

I am uncertain about the value of either anything that can be said to my face or the value of people who feel they cannot speak to me about issues important to them face to face.

 

[BvBPL]

Merged posts.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I am uncertain about the value of either anything that can be said to my face or the value of people who feel they cannot speak to me about issues important to them face to face.

And now we get to the core of the issue. The bone of the disagreement. Since I'm not John Smith on Facebook with my girlfriend and cute dog plastered everywhere then I am worthless. I might be ashamed of some aspect of my life, and people must account for my value as a person before they read the words I write. After all, what I'm saying is contingent on my value as a person and should only be considered as good as its source. If you don't like what I'm saying you can always hold me accountable, or at least laugh at how ugly I am or how much prettier your girlfriend is.

Meh, maybe you're right. Maybe I am worthless scum and the internet is finally smart enough to get rid of me. Perhaps the internet, and even the world, would be better of without someone like me in it. The problem is me and my nature. I'm the one who shouldn't be here, ruining it for everyone else. I'm not being sarcastic, it's a real possibility I've considered in the course of thinking through this topic and how I feel about it.

 

[Silurian]

Not enough weight is being put in this argument to the possibility that you will not know who is harassing you if you give up your real name.

Someone can be all sweetness and honey on PS4 , here or elsewhere, then find out where you work etc and cause problems.

 

[AlpsStranger]

<snip>

 

[Mise]

You don't have to depend on the company either - don't use them and/or don't share personal information.

First of all, by saying this you're admitting that giving away your real name to a stalker is a bad idea -- which you obviously should. Because it is a terrible idea. Facebook's real name policy really does help stalkers and make it easier for them to harass and threaten their victims, and in the most extreme cases track them down and physically abuse them. Now, you're saying that there's nothing wrong with e.g. Playstation forcing people to use their real names, because we can simply not use them. But as more and more companies -- Facebook, Google, Microsoft being the biggest, but Playstation and surely others will follow suit -- force people to use their real names, this problem will only get worse and worse. A "determined asshat" won't have to do much "hard digging" to find out where you live. This is the first problem.

The second problem is that a girl shouldn't have to choose between playing computer games and not being stalked. Nobody should. Alps shouldn't, aimee shouldn't, my two friends who were stalked and harassed shouldn't. Nobody should have to choose between using public transport and not getting molested. Nobody should have to choose between going to school and not getting shot by the taliban. Forcing people to choose between giving the asshat who is stalking you your real name, and playing Call of Duty, is a totally s***ty choice to force on someone.

Yeah, sure, some people are going to think, "oh, crap, if I use my real name then I might get charged for stalking by the police!" and decide not to do it. But as Facebook shows there are loads and loads of stalkers who aren't put off by that at all. And in those cases, the stalking is made 100x worse by the fact that the stalker knows your real name and your real identity. The stalker turns from a disgusting nuisance into a threat to the victim's physical safety.

Your name isn't that divulging since if that is all you are going to share, people are going to have to dig hard or hack to get more than just that. Not sharing your name doesn't throw up much more of a barrier to a determined asshat who is going to stalk you. It isn't facebook's fault if you choose to share more info than your name with random people.

If by "dig harder" you mean "use the phone book" or "do a quick google" then... yeah, alright, you win this one...

"Determined asshat"? You do realise that stalkers aren't just uber haxx0rz who dox people for fun, right? The "determined asshat" who stalked my friend was just some loser who had a facebook account and too much spare time. He messaged her with disgusting messages, and harassed friends for more info. As it was, he went away after several years, without doing anything in real life. But it could have been so much worse. You seem to live in this world where stalkers are evil supervillian masterminds who can, with nothing more than the nickname Hobbsyoyo, hack into your TV and remotely install a webcam on it to record you masturbating in the shower through night-vision that sees through walls. But more often, they're just people who send disgusting messages like the horrible ones aimee received, that make women fear for their personal physical safety. Now, you can tell those women that they have nothing to fear, that their names aren't really divulging much information, or that it's their own fault if they become the victims of stalking just because they "put too much of themselves out there". But that just makes you an apologist.

I seriously don't know how to get through to you that giving a stalker your real name is a really bad idea. It should be obvious on the face of it...

 

[Akka]

I would say you would still want to be nicier, or at least more civil, because you want to protect your good name and save yourself from embrassment. Not every stick need be as fatal as losing your spouse and employment.

Or the jerkest people would simply go directly for actual harassment without going through the verbal abuse.
Or they would simply develop more wily way to be jerks, evading the upfront confrontations and use the much more hurtful real data on you to bring you down.

When you see just how much spite and hate you can encounter because you killed someone in Counter-Strike, or rushed someone in Starcraft, or failed to protect your ally in League of Legends (all popular online games)...
When you see just how much efforts some people put into being a pain (and I'm not talking about the pretty minor flaming we can see here, I'm talking about people being actual harsh trolls just because they find it fun)...

Do you really want to improve these guys abilities to be harmful by several scales ?
Displaying personnal information is a big no-no in most online communities for a reason. It's just increasing the means for jerks to be even more nefarious. I prefer a few dumb flaming than real, harmful bullying and bringing Big Brother to life.

I'm pretty sure you would change your tune rather quickly after being subject to the actual potential consequences what you promote once or twice.

 

[IkM]

Pc > ps

 

[AlpsStranger]

There's a fundamental disconnect Mise. We're talking to people who, plain and simple, don't live the way we do. They don't live the way people did five years ago.

It's complicated. We're still sorting out how to live as a connected society and there are firm camps forming on all sides and everything in between. I'm still a "classic" internet user, but we're talking to the newer style of internet users. It's not necessarily an age thing, either. I have cousins ten years older than me who pressure me to get on Facebook whenever I speak to them.

I don't think they're bad people, for what it's worth, I just wish they would leave me alone. Anonymity online adds a lot to my life and I try to control my feelings about them wanting to take it away. I don't think BvBPL has bad intentions with what he's saying and, as I've said several times, I'm quite possibly just a horribly maladjusted person. I freely admit that BvBPL might be a much nicer guy in every way than me, and his desire might be pure as the driven snow. The world might very well be better off with less AlpsStranger and more BvBPL. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

But I must be against it, simply because my psychology doesn't bend that way. If there is no way to use the internet without constantly exposing your real name then I am screwed in a big, big way. It's almost a phobia-level thing with me, I'm not even kidding. I'm like an arachnophobe discussing the merits of everyone wearing spiders as hats.

 

[Farm Boy]

There's a fundamental disconnect Mise. We're talking to people who, plain and simple, don't live the way we do. They don't live the way people did five years ago.

It's complicated. We're still sorting out how to live as a connected society and there are firm camps forming on all sides and everything in between. I'm still a "classic" internet user, but we're talking to the newer style of internet users. It's not necessarily an age thing, either. I have cousins ten years older than me that pressure me to get on Facebook whenever I speak to them.

I don't think they're bad people, for what it's worth, I just wish they would leave me alone. Anonymity online adds a lot to my life and I try to control my feelings about them wanting to take it away. I don't think BvBPL has bad intentions with what he's saying and, as I've said several times, I'm quite possibly just a horribly maladjusted person. I freely admit that BvBPL might be a much nicer guy in every way than me, and his desire might be pure as the driven snow. The world might very well be better off with less AlpsStranger and more BvBPL. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

But I must be against it, simply because my psychology doesn't bend that way. If there is no way to use the internet without constantly exposing your real name then I am screwed in a big, big way. It's almost a phobia-level thing with me, I'm not even kidding. I'm like an arachnophobe discussing the merits of everyone wearing spiders as hats.

You don't have to keep apologizing for your viewpoint on this Alps. I'm not particularly paranoid and I agree with you here.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, what Farm boy said.

The thing is, I don't actually mind giving my real name to Google or Facebook or Playstation or anyone else, because I never have and never will be a victim of stalking or harassment. But there are LOADS of people, usually young girls and women, who are, and for those people, I want them to be able to choose not to give their stalkers and easy ride. I don't want to live in a world where girls are forced to choose between using popular services on the internet and preventing stalkers from harassing and threatening them.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I'm not so much apologizing as trying to show that I'm being sincere. I'm admitting my weakness upfront so it's not a hovering suspicion.

I have paid a social price already for staying off of Facebook and such. I'm fearful and disappointed because the cost for my personal level of comfort seems to be getting higher at an alarming rate. What else will I have to amputate from my life to limit my exposure to what I'm comfortable with?

It was easy just a few years ago. I just "didn't use myspace" and nobody questioned it, life went on. Now I'm reminded of my noncompliance by half of the applications and services I use. I'm afraid that the "Would you like to log in with Facebook?" will become "Log in with Facebook" very quickly.