I’m thinking about how emails ended up becoming. Where our first email addresses were so wacky, and slowly we just wanted out real names.
I have two accounts, one with my real name, that I want to be tied to my real life identity, and an anonymous one. They are simply for quite different purposes. I very much understand and appreciate the need for privacy by default. But for some stuff I dont mind that its public, and I actually prefer that. Like this post, for example. I’m fine with IRL people knowing some of the stuff I post on the internet. But most certainly I also want privacy, and them not knowing everything.
no idea what happened but a few years ago there was buzz about a company called keebase which was to do identify verification across platforms.
it seems to have something to do with “blockchain” though so I never got much use from it because anything with blockchain smells scammy to me. maybe something like that (without bitcoin) which would be useful.
Nah no way, I doubt anyone would use their real name…
Depends on the type of Fediverse service. I tended to find people used their real name on Twitter but a pseudonym on Reddit. I expect the same will be true of Mastodon and Kbin respectively.
I mean… I use my real name.
Why wouldn’t you use your real name?
I… I’m not sure? I feel like it does introduce a bit of bias. The anonymity helps to add some blindness on upvoting comments. For example, I doubt a girl with their name intact would post openly about how to go about having an abortion in a red state.
people who post on social media with female sounding names are also subject to regular, random abuse from strangers, especially if they become even a tiny bit prominent.
I can think of several reasons off the top of my head.
Perhaps you want to discuss things your boss doesn’t want employees talking about (teachers discussing drugs/alcohol/nsfw stuff or anyone trash-talking their employer).
Perhaps you want to discuss things your family/friends don’t approve of (closeted LGBT, political opinions, drugs/nsfw, mental health, even stuff like motorcycles).
Perhaps you want to discuss controversial topics and reduce the chance of having some lunatic send you death threats.
Doxxers.
I say I like apples. Someone else thinks I’m literally Satan for that and need to die in a fire for promoting the apple agenda. They have more work to do under my current username if they want to get my home address and beat me up, or send a SWAT team after me. Just giving out my real name makes it a lot easier.
I’m a nobody, but I’m a nobody who likes to say things on the internet sometimes, and other nobodies can be crazy sometimes. Or sadists who don’t think I deserve to die in a fire but sure think it would be funny and want to see me post about the attempted arson.
I think if we get to the point that we need professional accounts that will happen. Like, say the US Government finally gets fed up with Twitter and establishes a mastodon so that the Dept of the Interior can talk to the public again. Maybe some people will have official mastodon accounts on that server, and use their real names.
This is a really good point. Has there been any talk about how verification of users might work for when that does happen?
Mastodon has a system that verifies an account’s possession of another webpage. So that could help with company accounts.
I would imagine the instance is in charge of verification, and the instance itself will need to be verified.
With US government stuff, I wouldn’t trust anything not .gov but I’m not sure how others will handle it.
