What, no official rep from Facebook here on Get Satisfaction?

Facebook has definitely shown interest in joining the conversation here on Satisfaction. Hopefully it won't be too long before they're here answering questions and creating a dialog.

For now you could suggest they start using Satisfaction here:
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?tab=...

What can we do as a community to get a Facebook rep on Satisfaction?

I am extremely upset over Facebook's unintelligent move to delete people using alternative identities online. Besides this being a complete lack of respect for online privacy (specifically bloggers and sex workers who require alternative names in order to live normal lives: please read http://girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot... ), it shows a lack of understanding for building online brands (e.g. Cameron is always known as Ceedub, many of us have friends who are known under alternative identities to avoid stalkers, etc.). Even more so, this disrespects rape victims, people with families, and anyone else who would prefer not to hurt others or themselves more by simply being online.

While Facebook may claim that users shouldn't use their service if they require online privacy, it's not a good excuse. Kicking someone out of your service is not like asking them to move to another town; there is only one internet for all of us to use. A lot of these concepts can be seen in any one of Violet Blue's talks about the importance of online privacy. Google has had her come in as a speaker to help advise their policies, so there is no reason for Facebook not to listen to these issues.

Ariel,

I agree that Facebook's policy is silly, especially as there are real and valid reasons to conceal one's identity.

"Kicking someone out of your service is not like asking them to move to another town; there is only one internet for all of us to use."

With that I disagree, while there is "only one Internet", there are many social networks. We do not have to use Facebook. I'm aware that some people have shunned it for it's wall-garden policy, propriety language among other things.

Facebook is not forcing people off the street to disclose their names. It is a requirement for joining the service. Big Difference.

As for Google and the Violet Blue example, Google has become a defacto monopoly and public utility. It is in its own interest to look out and protect personal privacy, especially with its "do no evil" policy. Facebook is yet to be in that situation of being the dominating "social utility" to the same capacity Google is.

"We do not have to use Facebook."

Unless, say, you work somewhere like Gawker Media, where Facebook is used as the company directory.

I'd be happy to sign up for Facebook, but they've deemed my professional pseudonym to be not good enough (unlike the professional pseudonyms of others that are close enough to "real" names to pass) and won't let me sign up.

Re: anonymity and Facebook, this is not just an issue of sexuality and privacy. There are significant reasons that human rights activists and political dissidents would wish to use Facebook (and already use other online services) for organizing, and need to do so under a name other than the one on whatever government issued documents they have, if any.

I would like to know what the motives were at Facebook for restricting users to "real-sounding" names, as clearly, a legal name is not the criteria. There is value in having an online community in which there aren't scores of billandsuzie69's. Which isn't to thrash swingers, or closeted fetishists, or any other subcategory of us sex people -- who, more and more, want to take a place in the "professional" side of web community, but must do so with a bit of anonymity. Sometimes that anonymity has nothing to do with hiding one's face; it's not as if, for example, Facebook will suddenly become awash in a sea of genital photos. It's a matter of search engine (in)visibility between a birth name and a nom de guerre, and, now, even more so, a matter of consistent brand recognition under a chosen name.

I think we need to divide two different issues:

1. Facebook Privacy Policy
2. Activists Need for Privacy

1. On "Facebook Privacy Policy"
I still contend that Facebook is not the only game in town and further more it is no even the biggest Social Network internationally. There is Bebo, Hi5 et al. Facebook is the web2.0 flavor of the month, just like before it was Friendster or MySpace.

If Facebook achieves marketshare dominance like Google internationally, then we need to worry. Until then, I say it will be very foolhardy for anyone who is privacy sensitive to be on Facebook and it's also easy to make up a name like "Jason Winfrey" instead of making it suspiciously fake like "Ceedub".

If we don't like facebook, let's go somewhere else. Activist can build their own service through open-source software like Pligg or using the Consumating platform.

It would be a tremendous folly for a privacy-sensitive activist to depend on a corporation to protect them. Yahoo in China is but one example.

2. On "Activists Need for Privacy"
If we're talking about privacy in general and its importance for dissidents, there are FAR bigger fish to fry than Facebook. EU has a data retention policy potentially allows everything from your gym membership to cable subscription be held in a giant EU Intelligence database. The data can be saved from 6 months to 2 years.

That's a real privacy issue. Facebook simply isnt.

I agree that doing advocacy/activism on platforms that have no interest in protecting activists' privacy is risky behavior, but people are doing it anyway. (The issue of bloggers who want brand extension under a psuedonym being "banned" from Facebook pales in comparison, for me.) I can tell sex workers in Cambodia and Thailand that YouTube isn't the best place to put videos documenting protests, for lots of reasons, but that's where a huge audience is all the same. Open source activist tools are crucial, but not enough people know what's out there or how to use them well. "Accidental" activism is happening on MySpace and on Wordpress blogs -- in fact, folks from Wordpress have been responsive to questions around the deletion of activists' blogs, and wanted to have a conversation around why anonymity is important. For the sake of this forum, I'd just like to highlight that Facebook needs to hear that users want to know why they want our real and/or legal names.

The next question regarding identity should be, "If my profile picture is wearing a fake mustache, will facebook ban me?"

I can see the desire to connect accounts in facebook to people in the real world; Part of its addictive nature is that I can browse around my friends and their friends looking for people I've known in the past. I have no clue whether or not "ImageMan77" is someone I went to highschool with, but I do know who Brian Howe is. Pseudonyms and internet personalities are converse to social networks. People want to connect to other people they know, not fakestevejobs. He's just icing on the cake.

It's a tough problem, but I tend to agree with facebook in philosophy. While I try to be sensitive to the issues faced by people expressing themselves on the internet, especially many women's concern with stalking and other abuses, I tend to think that part of it goes with the territory. Celebrity has its costs, and it is up to each individual to decide whether they can accept that burden. Anonymity on the internet can be hard, and needs to be managed; pretending that it is a solution to celebrity stalkers is dangerous. Given a long enough internet celebrity status, everyone gets outed. By approaching your contribution to the interweb with the attitude that everything you do is connected to your real life persona, through pseudonym or not, you are navigating a much safer course; You can ask yourself along the way whether the risk/reward ratio is good enough to continue.

One of the root causes is that although it is possible to generate great celebrity on the internet, you often can't generate the kind of funds that help to protect traditional celebrities. As bloggers are able to monetize their work more in proportion to their celebrity, much of these issues will go away, or at least be more palatable.

The political dissident case is a very unique one. If you are raising a revolution and are stupid enough to organize it through Facebook, I say you deserve to get caught. That may seem harsh, but come on, seriously. Someone with the practical knowledge to make a revolution succeed would know better than to piggy-back their efforts off of a commercial entity under the thumb of an opposing government.

Just IMO, of course.

I have to disagree with you ariel. There may be one internet, but there are many social networking sites that meet various needs. I think one of facebook's defining features is that it's about real people interacting. There are many social networking sites (outside NA I believe) that actually verify your identity with government id.

There are obviously strong reasons for wanting to interact anonymously online, but there are equally valid reasons to want to belong to a community where people are who they say they are. That's what's great about the internet - you can choose which fora to participate in. Unless you're Lux of course...

Hey , my name is Svetlin Radoslavof. My account was dissabled due to
> adding friends. I had no idea that this could happen. If I would have known
> I would not have not done that. Please reactivate my account, Im a student
> at the University of Rochester and I have many contacts on which I have made
> through face book. Many people are counting on me. I emailed facebook
> numerously, but I have not gotten a responce back. Please help me
> reactiveate my accound and I would not abuse this feature ever again.
>
> Thank you
>
> sincerely,
>
> Svetlin Radoslavof

There is only one internet, but there are countless networks through which interested people can connect online. If Facebook doesn't do it for you, go somewhere else.

If you are set on using Facebook, but want to protect yourself, your family, etc. only allow people you know and trust to view your information.

(Interesting enough... when you register to create a profile on this site, you're given the tip that "Real people usually get more respect in online communities." So very true.)