Another Facebook Zuckerberg Wants to Kill Off Anonymity

After the mass Google bannings over pseudonyms, Facebook’s marketing director Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has now announced that “anonymity on the Internet has to go away.”

The HuffPost reported that during a round table discussion hosted by Marie Claire magazine, Zuckerberg gave her opinion on how to stop cyberbullying and online harassment.

I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.

The EFF wants you to stop and think about that for a minute.

Randi Zuckberg doesn’t just think that you should be using your real name on Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn — she thinks pseudonyms have no place on the Internet at all. And why should we take the radical step of stripping all Internet users of the right to speak anonymously? Because of the Greater Internet F***wad Theory, or the “civility argument,” which states: If you allow people to speak anonymously online, they will froth at the mouth, go rabid, bully and stalk one another. Therefore, requiring people to use their real names online should decrease stalking and bullying and generally raise the level of discourse.

Like Schmidt, two Zuckerbergs now have voiced their beliefs that there is no room on the web for anonymity. In real life situations, most folks don’t walk around with a name tag plastered on their chest. For example, if you are in a public gathering and someone voices an opinion, you don’t know that person’s name unless you actually know that person. You can ask their name, but it’s not automatically known. In the mall, or even walking on a sidewalk, if some guy whistles at you or if a group “cat calls,” you don’t immediately have access to their real names either. While some people might like that sort of thing, some people might not. Just as on the Internet, you can almost count on the fact that someone will not like whatever you say in a comment or in a post and exercise their free speech right to say so. Is it really a good idea to strip away anonymity and replace it with real identities when there are plenty of people in the cyberworld who are totally unbalanced and capable of taking that argument from the digital world to up-close and personal in the real world? What about activists? Real identities and real names would make it mighty handy for government surveillance.

When Mark Zuckerberg claimed “Anonymity is authenticity,” 4Chan founder Moot said, “Mark Zuckerberg has kind of equated anonymity with a lack of authenticity, almost a cowardice, and I would say that’s fully wrong. I think anonymity is authenticity, it allows you to share in a completely unvarnished, unfiltered, raw way and I think that’s something that’s extremely valuable.”

Previously Microsoft Partner Architect Marc Davis talked of the Web of the World where “every piece of data on the Internet maps back to who created it and who they know. Where they were when they did it, where they’ve been and where they plan to go. What they are interested in, attend to, and interact with, and is around them, and when they do these things.” Davis suggested that your personal data could be traded as currency in the digital world.

On Facebook or Google Plus, where people must use real names, have you been monetarily compensated for that collection of your personal data? No and unless something radical happens to make Davis’ vision a reality, you won’t collect some form of digital currency for your online data connected to your real name. We all have good days and bad days when things that might normally roll off our backs, do not. Instead it ticks us off and something stupid is said offline or online. The real name rule could make Schmidt’s prediction a reality. He said that, in the future, all kids would likely change their legal name to avoid a connection with that identity which posted embarrassing photos or comments on social networking sites like Facebook.

Zuckerberg’s argument to stop cyberbullying by doing away with digital anonymity could open the door to bullying and stalking in real life. There’s usually a reason people choose anonymity. In the cyber world, you can choose to “die” and become yet another alias. In the real world, it’s unlikely people would up and move, change their name, after some especially troll-like comment set off another person who might be a bit unbalanced and physically come after you. It could swing the other way, not an angry stalker but one who is way too enamored of you. That’s doesn’t mean you want that digital person tracing your real identity and to come knocking on your door. Would all gamers then start using real names as well? Think hunting down digital folks in real life to extract some kind of “justice” doesn’t happen? It does.

Where do you draw the line in killing off anonymity? For every bit of good it would do, there is an equal bit of harm it could do. Ripping away pseudonyms is a stupid idea.

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Follow me on Twitter @PrivacyFanatic

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Google+ starts out far faster than Facebook, Twitter

Computerworld - Google+ is going great guns right out of the gate, with the site starting out far better than rivals Facebook, Twitter and Myspace did.

Google+, the social network Google launched just over a month ago, already has more than 25 million visitors, according to Comscore, an Internet traffic watcher.

Comscore said Google+ hit the 25 million visitor mark just shy of its one-month birthday.

Meanwhile, Comscore notes that it took Facebook about 35 months to get 25 million visitors. It took Twitter more than 30 months and it took Myspace more than 20 months to reach the 25 million-user mark, Comscore added.

“I’m mainly trying to put Google+’s exceptional growth in context by showing that Facebook is today the clear market leader even though it took longer than all its key competitors to reach 25 million,” said Andrew Lipsman, a vice president at Comscore.

Lipsman added that at this point it’s unclear how many of those 25 million Google+ users are regular users of the site or are simply people curious to take a look at the new site.

“It’s hard to ignore the impressive growth numbers so far, but I think there are also many visitors who are still dipping their toes into the pool but not yet ready to dive in,” he said.

He also noted that Google+ is still in a field trial phase and that users can only join the social network by invitation.

Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, agreed that the Google+ numbers are impressive, but he added that they’re not surprising.

“Come on, they’ve got Google behind it,” said Olds. “The visitor count is probably a combination of looky loos and actual users who are getting their profiles in shape.”

And he also noted that just because Google+ is out of the gate faster than Facebook and Twitter, there’s still a long way to go to usurp them.

“Facebook was the first truly mass market social network and, along with Myspace, was the pioneer,” said olds. “They were mostly unknown and had to build up their brand from the ground up. Google+ comes into an environment where social networking has a lot of mindshare and users, and it has the Google name attached to it and Google resources behind it. Its hit count should grow pretty quickly.”

The Comscore report noted that the U.S. leads in Google+ visitors with more than 6,440,000 from home and work computers (not from mobile devices). India comes in second with more than 3,600,000 Google+ users. Both Canada and the U.K. have had more than 1 million visitors and Spain rounds out the top 10 with more than 460,000.

And Comscore also pointed out that 63% of Google+ users are male.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, or subscribe to Sharon’s RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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Continuing coverage: Google+

Read more about Web 2.0 and Web Apps in Computerworld’s Web 2.0 and Web Apps Topic Center.

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