Facebook on Thursday began asking certain popular users to upload photos of their government issued identification cards to help the social network test a new accounts verification service, the social network confirmed to TPM.
In 1971, journalist Don Hoefler coined the name Silicon Valley. And just like every other 40-year-old Gen Xer, Silicon Valley is now having an identity crisis—about identity no less. The question: How should people name themselves online?
This brings MacKinnon to her book's central concern: the idea that, more and more, we live under a new breed of digital sovereigns — the Mark Zuckerbergs, Jeff Bezoses and Larry Pages — and thus is time to start to argue for our rights as citizens of cyberspace, not users or consumers or eyeballs being delivered to advertisers. Thus, for example, the recent pushback on Google after it insisted that users of Google Plus use their real names, which some called the "Nym wars," was, for MacKinnon, a hopeful example of netizens engaging with a kind of "collective bargaining," she noted during her talk at MIT. "We're at the Magna Carta moment" for this movement, she noted, insisting that revolution and constitution-drafting remained far off.
Several major websites spent the past year slowly chiseling away at online anonymity. Two of the biggest forces, Facebook and Google, even got into open spats, demanding that members use their real names online – and booting many who refused.
Details about the new Google Plus pseudonym policy implementation reveal new problems.
#nymwars RT @EFF: Google+ changes tune on pseudonyms: step in the right direction, but still more to do: http://t.co/tSWA2sgi #nymwars...
The anxious cyborgs who rule Google have decreed, after much controversy and deliberation, that they will alllow people to register accounts that do not match their official hu-man names.
Google Plus made a small change to its “real name” policy but it still doesn’t support pseudonyms.
Changing course, Google Plus will allow people to use pseudonyms, but it will require some users to prove that they use the name elsewhere in government documents, online or in published material.
New data from the commenting platform, Disqus, finds people who don't use their real names generate more positive feedback from their peers.
The Korea Communications Commission on Thursday said it will end online registration requiring resident registration numbers and other personal information as it is vulnerable to increasing cyber hacking.
My name is Eve. I believe in the right to privacy and in voluntary information disclosure, and that’s not a contradiction. My name is Eve… sometimes. When I was young, my parents made clear to me that I had to use a fake name online so that I would be protected from predators. I chose the name Gabrielle, and it’s still one of my favorites. My online persona grew up with me, and eventually I took the name Eve, which is the name I most often use today.
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Finally! In a stunning reversal, Google listens to the internet crowd and allows the use of established pseudonym in its Google plus real-name policy. By doing so, Google follows the footstep of Twitter – who is a long time supporter of pseudonym.
(Written late last night, this addresses the long saga I've had with Google in confirming my name on their services.)
New forms of digital technology and social networking sites such as Facebook are increasingly putting people at risk of stalking, according to a report published on...
Next steps in the #nymwars : suggestions for Google?
Google is now allowing a limited number of users on its social network Google+ to have fully pseudonymous accounts, a Google representative just confirmed with me.
Google+ will start allowing pseudonyms this week, but getting a pseudonym may require proof of identity, and Google can reject pseudonyms that aren't already well-known.
The Google+ Common Name policy will never be the same. Google now allows both nicknames and full-fledged pseudonyms on Google+.
With the U.S.government trying to pass what Google's Sergey Brin has called "China-like censorship," China has found a new way to tamp down free expression on the Internet: make people use their real names. ...
I’ve written before about how social-networking data — from sites such as MySpace and Facebook — have been used to gather evidence in trials against jurors and defendants, in divorce cases, against employees (which can lead to lawsuits from affected individuals), applicants to colleges and graduate schools, politicians and high school students. We’ve seen it affect applicants to jobs in the United States and abroad.
For a moment, I think it's important to talk like a normal person. Every so often, I get an objection in the comments or on Twitter about my use of a pseudonym, especially when I use this forum to criticize others who are not similarly pseudonymous.
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