Forcing moderators scrutinizing terrorists to use their real identities was a stupid, stupid idea that I hope facebook will change going forward. Perhaps facebook can look into getting some sort of anonymous identity for its moderators.
At the same time, it seems a false equivalency to use a story about people using real identities to scrutinize terrorist to support a position that it is dangerous for anyone to post real identity and photos online.
Certainly it is dangerous for children, teenagers, or people involved in dangerous work to post their identities online. As to ordinary adults who not involved in dangerous lines of work and with sufficient discretion . . . any danger inherent in this is a much weaker position that this article doesn't give much in the way of support for.
Domestic violence and sexual assault are extremely common, and this policy results in victims getting isolated since their attackers can use FB to locate and pursue them.
In addition to these sorts of serious, immediate dangers, certainly others of us prefer to never use our real name online because it is so uncommon. It's one thing to be Jim Smith, it's another to have a unique name and have your entire online history available to google. I figured this out in the 90s (via dejanews, before google even existed), and have never ever used my real name online since.
Further, I don't understand why some feel the need for me or anyone else to justify this position. It's real simple. I don't use services that try to enforce real ID or sometimes I use a fake name. It's extraordinarily creepy to me that facebook and google can not only determine my real name, but want to force me to use it online.
At the same time, it seems a false equivalency to use a story about people using real identities to scrutinize terrorist to support a position that it is dangerous for anyone to post real identity and photos online.
Certainly it is dangerous for children, teenagers, or people involved in dangerous work to post their identities online. As to ordinary adults who not involved in dangerous lines of work and with sufficient discretion . . . any danger inherent in this is a much weaker position that this article doesn't give much in the way of support for.