Could Banning Online Anonymity Help Prevent Cyber Crimes and Abuse? Facebook Says, Yes

[Missing Person]

Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg: Anonymity Online 'Has To Go Away'


Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s marketing director, has a fix for cyberbullying: stop people from doing anything online without their names attached.

Facebook requires all members to use their real names and email addresses when joining the social network -- a policy that has been difficult at times to enforce, as the prevalence of spam accounts or profiles assigned to people’s pets suggest.

Zuckerberg, who is Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, argued that putting an end to anonymity online could help curb bullying and harassment on the web.

“I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away,” she said during a panel discussion on social media hosted Tuesday evening by Marie Claire magazine. “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.”

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has also made this suggestion, calling online anonymity “

dangerous” and predicting that governments will eventually “demand” that people use their names for all online activity.

But the proposal to tie real-world identities to online actions is a controversial one, with many privacy and free speech advocates countering that anonymity is necessary to protect dissidents and other individuals, such as sexual abuse victims.

Gigaom’s Matthew Ingram wrote recently, “Many people believe that requiring real names will solve the problems of trolls and bad behavior, but they don’t -- and that policy can have negative consequences in terms of suppressing dialogue about important topics.”

Though pressed several times to name what new fatures Facebook will offer to better safeguard security on the social networking site, Zuckerberg declined to offer specific examples of forthcoming initiatives.

“There's so much more we can do,” she said. “We’re actively tying to work with partners like Common Sense Media and our safety advisory committee.”

Erin Andrews, an ESPN anchor who had a naked video of her posted online by a stalker, joined Zuckerberg as a panelist and addressed her struggles to have the illegally-obtained video removed from the web. She became emotional at points during the conversation and described her frustration working Google and other companies that declined to pull the video from the websites hosting it.

Andrews praised Google for its “remarkable” contribution to the campaign against bullying titled "It gets better

," but noted she also found it inconsistent: Google searches for her name still turn up the images and videos posted by her stalker, even as the search giant professes to be taking a stand against online harassment.

“So when does it get better? I’m confused,” said Andrews, who suggested that her situation may have been viewed differently because it involves a “woman in her 30s.” “It’s still cyberbullying. Somebody needs to step in. As a family we're always asking, what is it going to take?”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/randi-zuckerberg-anonymity...

[Sara Huizenga]

Although I've never given much thought to this prevention tactic before, I can see the sense in it - the majority of the online negative does seem to come from those hiding behind a handle ...

What do you all think?

[Jesse 'Opie' Ross]

Would this stop people from hacking other peoples accounts?

[Sara Huizenga]

I imagine that someone tech savvy enough to hack could also unfortunately finda way as well to get around this ...

[Lisa DeSherlia]

I can totally understand why many want to see this meaure strictly enforced on social network sites as it would require people to be held accountable for what they do online and it means by-bye to using social networks to hide and do your dirty work, undetected. But on the other hand, there are people who fear using their real na,mes because of privacy/security reasons. In my case, some family keep telling me to become anonymous because of my online bullies. I know of a person on my page who says she remains anonymous because she has received death threats.

[Sara Huizenga]

A good question is ... who are these "death threats" coming from? A real life person identity or an online handle?

[Sara Huizenga]

From my own experience - many years back - from using an online handle and communicating with those of whom the majority did as well ... the entire environment this use seemed to contribute to was EXTREME paranoia combined with juvenile antics - just a lot of mean spiritedness from no one being help accountable.

[Maureen Reintjes-Peace4 Admin]

For me personally I would have no problem whatsoever if they put this into place.  I can debate religion, politics you name it all under my own name.  Gee novel idea to be assosciated with one's own beliefs......how much can someone believe in something if they have to hide?

 

I'm sick of the families of the missing, the families of the murdered being preyed upon by sick people who use so many names/nics/handles on social networking sites. The psychic scammers, the reward mongers, the ignorant couch potatoe sleuthers that inject themselves into all areas of these cases but rarely use their own names as they wreak havoc on the families and on the cases.  The people who throw up Facebook sites or web pages for the missing without ever asking the familiy's permission.  I'm sick of going on missing person sites and having to ask first if this is a family member running the site/page or is this someone that the family has given verifiable permission to have this site/page up and running before I know whether or not to get involved on that site/page.  For all we know on some of these sites it's the kidnapper/murderer who has the site up.  And, I'm sick of memorial pages and YouTube memorial sites being the target of evil people leaving hurtful and hateful comments that the families can't get removed because they didn't put the site or video up and are not even admins on the site.

 

But with that said I can understand some people needing to use fake names:  victims of stalking, victims of domestic violence, law enforcement, PIs contracted on a case, etc. 

 

I guess if FB or any site was going to put something like this in place then it would have to be done under various security levels for individuals.  For pages for the missing/murdered/memorials then more stringent verification that the family has given permission to have another person have the site up for them.  (I know some people will yell "BUT WHAT ABOUT AWARENESS?" at me but what I see is the families spend so much time battling these unauthorized pages/sites that it takes away time they could be spending on awareness not to mention on how it zaps them emotionally.)

Most good people do not need to hide.  Most evil loves to be called by many names.

[Reza Jou]

Below is what Mr. Pirani, founder of the Safelist, said about gated classifieds website with verified identity.

Donna Jou was a 19-year-old, Honor student at San Diego State University when she disappeared in June 2007 after placing an
ad in an online classifieds website looking to earn a few extra dollars tutoring high school kids in math.

When I first learned about the very tragic story of Donna Jou and felt the incredibly palpable anguish of her Dad, Mr. Reza
Jou, in a birthday greeting that he posted on the website dedicated to her at www.DonnaJou.com, I became even more
determined to build a gated classifieds website that only allows users whose identity has been verified. Unlike shopping and
auction sites (e.g., Amazon and eBay) where users conduct business mostly by mail, users of online classifieds sites, on the
other hand, generally transact business in person. By allowing users to post ads anonymously, these websites create a perfect
breeding ground for criminals, who, thriving on anonymity, can hide behind their web browsers and prey on an unsuspecting and
trusting public with all kinds of nefarious activities, ranging from fraud to even more dangerous crimes, including rape, robbery,
and murder.

In 2009, police arrested John Steven Burgess, a 3 time convicted sexual predator, who confessed to luring Donna to her death
after reading her classified ad online. As a father of 2 young girls, I made it my mission in life to build a safer classifieds website
so that my two daughters will never have to fear for their lives when using an online marketplace.

Please join me in building a web community where members may participate in all types of activities—trade, commerce or
social—free from fear and suspicion. If the SafeList Marketplace can help save just one life, or help prevent just one woman
from being raped or prevent just one child from falling into the dangerous world of child prostitution, then we will have made a
significant contribution to society. However, with your help, I am convinced that SafeList.com will play a significantly bigger role
in cleaning up the web of criminals and make it safer for everyone. We must not allow Donna’s untimely and tragic death be in
vain but instead act as a catalyst for us all in creating a better and safer Internet!

Karim Pirani
Founder
SafeList.com