Bend Over, Facebook is Back

[Hermit]

A friend of mine jumbled her real name in order to prevent a long term stalker from finding her again. He apparently does not feel compelled by a court order to stay away from her. In this case Facebook's real name policy, said to help keep the community safe, clearly does the opposite. It's not only affecting members of the LGBT communities.

The policy is so obviously flawed that I kind of suspect that the owners of facebook are not actually concerned about the welfare or safety of its user base. I think it is motivated by the very real fact that the more detail it can feed its advertising customers, the more it can charge for the adverts. Maximising ROI trumps everything else once again.

[Ensign Steve]

I'll be interested to find out whether my initialism will be affected by this. My employer lets me use it on absolutely everything they legally can, including my security ID, but other than that I don't have any legal document with it on there. I can show that I've been using it as my first name since about age 4 (seriously I have a Girl Scout jacket and a high school letter jacket with it embroidered on the chest) but I've seen plenty of examples where even decades of usage is not enough.

[Janet]

Well, either they haven't caught or no one has turned in the dummy account I created for our Social Networking class. I guess they are assuming that someone with the real name Louis Renault might want to use Claude Rains' picture instead of their own.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Hermit

The policy is so obviously flawed that I kind of suspect that the owners of facebook are not actually concerned about the welfare or safety of its user base.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by Janet

Well, either they haven't caught or no one has turned in the dummy account I created for our Social Networking class.

There seems to be some evidence that there's conservative douches that are turning in queer folk to facebook. At least a few activists I know have had people internet stalk them (ironically using fake profiles) just to report pretty much every photo they post as obscene in an attempt to get their accounts deleted. It turns out facebook doesn't actually care if the account reporting you was formed 2 days ago with a meme as its photo.

[Ensign Steve]

Chris Cox - I want to apologize to the affected community of drag...

So that's a thing.

[ShottleBop]

Unrelated FB question: one of my sons posted a picture on a niece's FB page for her birthday. The picture showed up in Mrs. ShottleBop's FB feed, and that of other family members, but is not showing up in my FB feed. Not only that, it doesn't show up on my son's FB page when I go there, or on the niece's page when I check there. WTH?!

[BrotherMan]

I don't know. Facebook is weird. I have to keep changing it from TOP NEWS to MOST RECENT. Not every time but often enough. Even then, sometimes an older-ish post pops back up because of new replies or likes or whatever.

[Miisa]

I have put someone in my family into "acquaintances" as they were taking random stuff I posted generally as personal insults about them, more than once, and now I share most stuff with everyone but acquaintances, keeping them from seeing my stuff. But if they were to compare notes with other relatives they might notice they aren't getting all my updates...

Could you be relegated to second-degree relative status? By accident, perhaps?

[Ensign Steve]

Sure... by "accident"

[Miisa]

Feelings! Spare the feels!

[JoeP]

In other news, I'm not seeing any new posts from Miisa on fb. I wonder why that is.

[Dingfod]

I do. So there.

[Crumb]

[Dingfod]

FedEx delivers.

[Ari]

Turns out Facebooks 'apology' was all smoke and bullshit.

Facebook freezes accounts of native Americans, on Columbus day, even after they provided ID.
Facebook still freezing accounts despite apology to drag queens over 'real names' | Technology | theguardian.com

Basically if you have a non normative (read, non-white-christian) name, and someone doesn't like you, expect to eventually have your account frozen. Given their current method it sounds like you could totally post under a fake name for years so long as it's something like "Jim Smith."

[BrotherMan]

Anecdotally confirmed. I use a totes white sounding pseudonym and I have yet to be enbannenated.

[Ensign Steve]

HA! I knew that wasn't your real name.

[Miisa]

Exactly. No one has that cool a name IRL. Soon FB will catch on and build in a coolness filter.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

Anecdotally confirmed. I use a totes white sounding pseudonym and I have yet to be enbannenated.

Until someone () registers a complaint in some form of personal vendetta ...

[BrotherMan]

[lisarea]

Facebook will soon be able to ID you in any photo | Science/AAAS | News

It's OK, though. You can totally tell them to blur your face out in photos if you have an account and confirm their identification. I mean, sure, they have shadow profiles of you, whether you're a user or not, but it's not like they actually DOING ANYTHING with all this data they're spending enormous amounts of time and money gathering. It's just--you know--Facebook stuff that is none of your business, nosy parker.

[just me]

I have a facebook account. Using my real name. I have never posted anything there. I just have it because every so often someone tells me they will update me on something I sort of care about on facebook.

For the life of me I can't think of any reason I would post anything on facebook. They change their settings and privacy policy so often it's impossible to really know what is being shared with whom. They are clearly a data mining/big data company so gathering data and finding a way to monetize it is their primary, if not only priority.

Can't think of any reason I would voluntarily provide them with anything without being remunerated. Millions of people feel differently.

[Ari]

Facebook president and Facebook's PAC both donated money to Rand Paul for his 2016 presidential run.
Rand Paul’s courtship of Silicon Valley paying off in donations - SFGate

[lisarea]

Facebook 'tracks all visitors, breaching EU law' | Technology | The Guardian