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Several of my LJ friends have posted recently about Blizzard's plan to make forum users post under their real names. Having not played World of Warcraft in quite awhile, and having never posted on the forums, I don't have a horse in the race.
But I find one aspect of this completely, bizarrely absurd. The idea that forcing people to use their legal names is going to stop trolling, flame wars or online harassment... Have any of these people ever used Facebook? Outside of the comments on "news" sites, some of the most hateful shit I've seen on the internet has been posted under "real names" on that book of faces. The only thing that's going to stop trolls and asshats on the internet is for people to make that shitty behavior have actual consequences.
I started going online back in the day where you had to purchase credits to use the local BBS. I can't even remember what user name I used back then, honestly. But it wasn't anything like my legal name, and it probably didn't reveal my gender. (Or the fact that I was way underage and hanging out on a supposedly "adults only" board, but that's another story.) I'm old enough to remember when anonymity online meant an entirely different idea about protecting yourself and creating your identity.
Anonymity gives some people courage. It also gives makes some people cowards. There is no black or white way to deal with that issue. Forcing people in a community full of asshats to use their real names as some kind of ham handed, cheap way to moderate is idiotic.
But I find one aspect of this completely, bizarrely absurd. The idea that forcing people to use their legal names is going to stop trolling, flame wars or online harassment... Have any of these people ever used Facebook? Outside of the comments on "news" sites, some of the most hateful shit I've seen on the internet has been posted under "real names" on that book of faces. The only thing that's going to stop trolls and asshats on the internet is for people to make that shitty behavior have actual consequences.
I started going online back in the day where you had to purchase credits to use the local BBS. I can't even remember what user name I used back then, honestly. But it wasn't anything like my legal name, and it probably didn't reveal my gender. (Or the fact that I was way underage and hanging out on a supposedly "adults only" board, but that's another story.) I'm old enough to remember when anonymity online meant an entirely different idea about protecting yourself and creating your identity.
Anonymity gives some people courage. It also gives makes some people cowards. There is no black or white way to deal with that issue. Forcing people in a community full of asshats to use their real names as some kind of ham handed, cheap way to moderate is idiotic.