Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works in a love all things tech, and
Speaker 1: welcome to another classic episode of tech Stuff. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we talk about the concept of anonymity. Anonymity is one
Speaker 1: of those things that the Internet was kind of built
Speaker 1: off of, and there's been sort of a love hate
Speaker 1: relationship between anonymity and the need to have some form
Speaker 1: of accountability on the Internet. This episode originally published on
Speaker 1: August two thousand eleven. It's one of the true classics
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. Chris Palette and I have this conversation.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this discussion about anonymity. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk today about anonymity and the web and its
Speaker 1: relationship with one another and how things have been changing
Speaker 1: over time. And this also ties a lot into a
Speaker 1: privacy in the web. In fact, the two are these
Speaker 1: topics are all very closely related. But um it's it's
Speaker 1: been in the news a lot recently, and by recently
Speaker 1: I mean the summer of of two thousand eleven because
Speaker 1: of a couple of different things. First of all, a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago you had um or it was
Speaker 1: only a year ago, but you had Mark Zuckerberg say
Speaker 1: that the the whole notion of privacy was falling out
Speaker 1: of social norms, meaning that people today don't value privacy
Speaker 1: or don't think of privacy is something that's important the
Speaker 1: way that generations earlier had, uh you know, thought of
Speaker 1: the subject. So uh, that was that actually kind of
Speaker 1: explains a lot about certain things that Facebook has done
Speaker 1: over the past, where you know, it's all about sharing information,
Speaker 1: particularly information about yourself and the things you like to
Speaker 1: do in the places you like to go. And then
Speaker 1: you know, the the argument I think someone at Facebook
Speaker 1: would make is that the more you share, the more
Speaker 1: you're going to get out of that service. So if
Speaker 1: you do not share a lot, you won't really benefit
Speaker 1: from the service the way you do if you are
Speaker 1: someone who shares lots of stuff. Although even that, you know,
Speaker 1: we could anyone could tell you if they have a
Speaker 1: friend who shares absolutely everything that that can get old too. Yes. Sorry, Look,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a particularly interesting bowl of oatmeal,
Speaker 1: so I shared it. Well, it's always nice to share otmeal.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but all right, anyway, we're getting off
Speaker 1: track because I mean I just go back to the
Speaker 1: Oatmeal party where Josh Clark did that well anyway, So
Speaker 1: so Facebook's approach is saying that anonymity and privacy are
Speaker 1: really kind of those are old ideas that we're slowly
Speaker 1: seeing phase out. And then the other thing that kind
Speaker 1: of brought this into attention was a Google launching Google Plus,
Speaker 1: and we did that episode on Google Plus, that epic
Speaker 1: Google Plus episode. One thing we didn't really talk about
Speaker 1: that much was that Google Plus. You know, in order
Speaker 1: to have a Google Plus profile, you have to have
Speaker 1: a Google profile. In order to have a Google profile,
Speaker 1: it has to be a Google profile that's public because
Speaker 1: they eliminated all private Google profiles, And you had to
Speaker 1: have a name associated with that profile. And it didn't
Speaker 1: have to necessarily be your legal name, but it did
Speaker 1: have to be the name that you go by the
Speaker 1: most frequently. And so you would, you know, I have
Speaker 1: to put a first name in a last name and
Speaker 1: make it make it a legitimate name if it were
Speaker 1: something that was clearly a handle or a nickname or
Speaker 1: just unusual had some odd characters in it, like not
Speaker 1: like you know, Alex from Clockwork Orange odd characters, but
Speaker 1: like symbols like at symbols or hashtags or things like that.
Speaker 1: Um that Google would flag it and then Google would
Speaker 1: suspend your Google Plus account. It is a darn good
Speaker 1: thing that Prince decided to go back to being prince. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he the web's over compared if yes, Prince, So
Speaker 1: it's immaterial for this discussion. Point yea irregardless um supposedly supposedly,
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, anyway, if you if you put these these
Speaker 1: symbols into your name, or you had some other weird
Speaker 1: name going in there, Google might flag your account and
Speaker 1: suspend it. Uh. They then later on kind of adjusted
Speaker 1: that a little bit where they would give you a
Speaker 1: warning saying you need to go into your Google profile
Speaker 1: and put in your actual name, and you could add
Speaker 1: in nicknames and stuff and another field called other names,
Speaker 1: but that the name associated with your profile would be
Speaker 1: your real name. Now, that brought up some some questions
Speaker 1: among a lot of users, and it ranges through the
Speaker 1: whole spectrum. You've got the spectrum that includes people who
Speaker 1: are know that their argument is that hey, I have
Speaker 1: made a a name for myself under this persona. It's
Speaker 1: like a brand. Yeah, a brand exactly. It's like a brand.
Speaker 1: So um The example I used in my blog post
Speaker 1: was Dr Kiki of Dr Kki Science. Yeah, she's she's
Speaker 1: a scientist, um uh. And she is known as Dr Keiki.
Speaker 1: Her first name is I believe Kirsten. But but you know,
Speaker 1: she that's not what everyone knows her as. So she
Speaker 1: created a Google profile using Dr Kiki and um uh, yes,
Speaker 1: Kirsten Sandford. That's her name, Dr Kirsten Sandford. So she
Speaker 1: went she goes as everyone knows her is Dr Kiki,
Speaker 1: So that's what she created a Google profile as. But
Speaker 1: she her Google Plus profile was suspended because it did
Speaker 1: it violated the rules that Google had set up. And
Speaker 1: Google's argument was that he wanted to create a social
Speaker 1: network that would let people connect with folks they know
Speaker 1: and folks they know of easily, and that that if
Speaker 1: you start putting in handles and things and you're cloaking
Speaker 1: your identity, that's kind of antithetical to what Google meant
Speaker 1: Google Plus two be. The problem is that's not the
Speaker 1: way people use the web. You know, people use the
Speaker 1: web in all sorts of different ways. There are people
Speaker 1: who will use their own names as their handles. For example,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people. I use my own name
Speaker 1: as my handle pretty much everywhere, and uh, the reason
Speaker 1: for that is so that I keep myself accountable for
Speaker 1: the things I say. It's a personal choice. I don't
Speaker 1: judge anyone else who goes by a handle. I totally
Speaker 1: understand that, and I think anonymity is an interesting and
Speaker 1: important issue. I just, for myself choose to use my
Speaker 1: own name because one, uh, that's kind of my brand.
Speaker 1: It's my name at this point. If I had gone
Speaker 1: by some other weird, wacky name, I'd probably be using
Speaker 1: that everywhere. But to you know, it's just again, it
Speaker 1: just keeps me responsible for the things I say. I'm
Speaker 1: less likely to say something really offensive or outrageous or
Speaker 1: just pigheaded because it's attached to my name, and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go onto some forum and and tell off
Speaker 1: the person who posted above me that they're a complete
Speaker 1: jerk and an idiot. And you know, I'm I'm less
Speaker 1: likely to do that. I still do it, I just
Speaker 1: don't do it as frequently as I would if I had.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, hamster Man seventy three was my handle,
Speaker 1: and no one knew that that was me. But we
Speaker 1: all know now, well I don't post under that handle anymore.
Speaker 1: You won't find those YouTube comments coming from me anymore. Buster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's funny. Um you need to it's weird to
Speaker 1: put this in perspective, so you know, to some degree,
Speaker 1: I think online Mark Zuckerberg has a point. We've gotten
Speaker 1: to the point where we're interested in social networking. Um.
Speaker 1: We have business profiles on link den dot com. We've
Speaker 1: got uh, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and all the others
Speaker 1: for our social fun you know, our our informal networking,
Speaker 1: in some case business networking too. Um and And it's hard.
Speaker 1: It's when you've gotten used to the idea of the
Speaker 1: right to privacy, which, um, you know here in the
Speaker 1: United States we have a certain expectation of personal privacy,
Speaker 1: um and not that's not necessarily true everywhere else in
Speaker 1: the world. But when you've established all these accounts and
Speaker 1: you say, no, I just want to be online and
Speaker 1: have my uh my ten family members and sixty friends,
Speaker 1: and that's it. That's all I want on my account.
Speaker 1: I don't want everyone else to read my posts. Why
Speaker 1: are you making them available? Um? The thing is, Mark
Speaker 1: has a point because if you, you do have that
Speaker 1: right to privacy. But when you join Facebook, the point
Speaker 1: is to be social, and I, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want I'm one of those people that would prefer to
Speaker 1: socialize with people I know in real life and not
Speaker 1: you know, everybody online that I that I really don't
Speaker 1: know that well. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: if if I joined Facebook and I don't have, you know,
Speaker 1: I have to play the rules, by the rules of Facebook,
Speaker 1: and if Facebook says on Facebook, you don't have the
Speaker 1: right to privacy. And to the same extent, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're you're everyone can see you. Now. You don't have
Speaker 1: to publish your stuff so that the world can read
Speaker 1: every single post you write, but everybody's going to be
Speaker 1: able to see that you have a profile. And that's
Speaker 1: just the way it is on Facebook. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: I I see the annoyance, but I don't see why
Speaker 1: people get so very angry simply because you've you're you're
Speaker 1: agreeing to the terms of service for joining those accounts.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons I wasn't anxious to
Speaker 1: uh join Google Plus right away. It was because I
Speaker 1: realized that I was gonna have to make my profile
Speaker 1: public and everybody was going to be able to see
Speaker 1: it was me, And um, you're not allowed to use
Speaker 1: your nickname because I mean, not only is that against
Speaker 1: the rules, but it also shows up against your account.
Speaker 1: So if I wanted to be Larry the Wonder Beagle,
Speaker 1: then all my email on Gmail comes from Larry the
Speaker 1: Wonder Beagle, and I don't want to do that because
Speaker 1: I keep in touch with you. You would essentially have
Speaker 1: to create a second Gmail account just for your Google
Speaker 1: Plus profile in that case, which you could theoretically do,
Speaker 1: although you're again kind of skirting the rules there. Yeah. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean that's and it would be annoying because you
Speaker 1: always have to log out of one account and log
Speaker 1: into the other whenever you wanted to check your quote
Speaker 1: unquote real email. Yeah, exactly. It's a it's a pain
Speaker 1: in the neck. But the thing is, and again, this
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the actual law. This has
Speaker 1: to do with the terms of service of the website
Speaker 1: you're using, and it is it is frustrating. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan back in two thousand and eighteen. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to interrupt here to say we need to have
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. I think there
Speaker 1: are some people who who agree, like, all right, I
Speaker 1: get it. If I want to be on blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: I have to play by their roles. I think the
Speaker 1: fear is that the approach to eliminating anonymity entirely, they're
Speaker 1: they're worried about that being more of a broad approach
Speaker 1: to the web in general. Yeah, and I worry about
Speaker 1: that too. Yeah, that's something that I'm not interested because
Speaker 1: because that would be let's let's say that Twitter made
Speaker 1: that same same decision that your Twitter handle had to
Speaker 1: be your first and last name. Now for me, it
Speaker 1: happens to be that, but the shortened version of my
Speaker 1: first name because Jonathan Strickland does not fit as a
Speaker 1: full Twitter handle. Um, so you know, Johnny cakes, that's me. No,
Speaker 1: it's not, It's not really me anyway, so the cake
Speaker 1: cake I prefer pie anyway. If Twitter did that, then
Speaker 1: you know, you think about that there there, We've seen
Speaker 1: Twitter being used in things like a political revolutions, you know,
Speaker 1: political unrest, turmoil, riots, that kind of thing, protests, uh,
Speaker 1: situations where the people who are organizing it definitely would
Speaker 1: not want their their identity shared with the general public
Speaker 1: because it would put themselves in danger, literal physical danger,
Speaker 1: and it would it would help prevent them from doing
Speaker 1: the the political activist work they were trying to do.
Speaker 1: Like if they were to post something and it was
Speaker 1: traced back to their identity, they could be you know,
Speaker 1: theoretically by by an oppressive government brought in and then
Speaker 1: not only do you have a person brought in by
Speaker 1: the same government they were trying to protest, but whatever
Speaker 1: activities they were trying to organize have been, um, you know,
Speaker 1: have been somewhat well sidetracked, have been have been sabotaged
Speaker 1: exactly because you no longer have that anonymity. And so
Speaker 1: there is a definite place for anonymity on the web.
Speaker 1: So you here here, Like, let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: the different arguments that people make for and against anonymity. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've already covered one of them, which is that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to be able to connect
Speaker 1: with people, you need to be able to know who
Speaker 1: to look for. And it's kind of hard to look
Speaker 1: for someone if everyone's using up fake names everywhere. So
Speaker 1: that's one argument against anonymity. Um another is another argument
Speaker 1: against anonymity is that, uh, making someone use their own
Speaker 1: name kind of the way I was explained my own
Speaker 1: personal approach, uh, keep some somewhat accountable for their words
Speaker 1: and actions. So, in other words, the idea is that
Speaker 1: if you make sure that people cannot be anonymous, you
Speaker 1: really cut back on trolling. That's that's ultimately what we
Speaker 1: get down to. So can you imagine what a place
Speaker 1: YouTube would be if everyone had to use their real
Speaker 1: names and like there was a way of really linking
Speaker 1: an account to an actual person as opposed to just
Speaker 1: a handle, because I mean, you look at some of
Speaker 1: the quotes on YouTube, and they are some of the meanest, nastiest,
Speaker 1: mean spirited stuff I've ever read anywhere, and just on
Speaker 1: the typical video even you know something that a video
Speaker 1: that has no objectionable material in it, it's just silly,
Speaker 1: or it's or it's even you know, even if it's boring.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you kill the nastiest responses. And so the argument
Speaker 1: is that, well, if you made sure that people could
Speaker 1: not be anonymous, couldn't hide behind a pseudonym or a handle,
Speaker 1: that they would be nicer. And that's probably true for
Speaker 1: most people, they would probably be nicer. I don't think
Speaker 1: that it would magically make the web a shiny, happy
Speaker 1: place and no one would ever disagree with anyone, and
Speaker 1: you would never have anyone call anyone else a hurtful
Speaker 1: name or anything that's naive. That would still happen, but
Speaker 1: I think it would cut down quite a bit on
Speaker 1: the trollish behavior. But I don't know that the trade
Speaker 1: off is worth that, you know, So anyway, those are
Speaker 1: those are two arguments against anonymity. But one that we've
Speaker 1: mentioned already is what if you want to be able
Speaker 1: to protest something or to bring attention to an issue
Speaker 1: that could get yourself in trouble, um, just because of
Speaker 1: your circumstances. That's true, um. And then there's a difference
Speaker 1: to I mean, we could take, uh, we could take
Speaker 1: specifically the the example of Google itself. So on the
Speaker 1: one hand, you've got Google Plus, which is a social
Speaker 1: networking service that is optional for you to join you
Speaker 1: if you if you want to join the service. Currently
Speaker 1: as of the time we're recording this, you have to
Speaker 1: use your real name and that's up to you. You
Speaker 1: do not have to join Google Plus. Then you have
Speaker 1: Google street View. On the other hand, and this again
Speaker 1: long term listeners will know that We've talked about this
Speaker 1: before on the on previous podcasts. So Google street View
Speaker 1: the idea of being that Google is sending cars on
Speaker 1: driving around neighborhoods, driving on city streets, um, and basically
Speaker 1: they take pana ramic photos of the street so you
Speaker 1: can see I personally find it really helpful when I'm
Speaker 1: looking for a business that I've never seen before. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get there and you can go look it
Speaker 1: up online and see a picture of what it looks like. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's the green building, and you can pan around and
Speaker 1: see what the surrounding buildings are and you can you
Speaker 1: get an idea for the landmarks. Yes, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: really a neat idea, a concept on the table right
Speaker 1: there is a neat idea, especially when you apply to
Speaker 1: things like I want to take a virtual tour of
Speaker 1: a city I've never been in, and you could literally
Speaker 1: do that if you have a fast enough connection to
Speaker 1: the Internet and a good processor, then yeah you can.
Speaker 1: You can you know, navigate through street View and go
Speaker 1: down streets in cities just as if you were there,
Speaker 1: um without the like, you know, you can stroll down
Speaker 1: New York City at night without worrying about getting bugged.
Speaker 1: So I don't think it'd be at night. Well, no,
Speaker 1: but it would. It would be kind of hard to see.
Speaker 1: But um, and there are there are many funny stories
Speaker 1: about Google street View, the cameras getting knocked off by
Speaker 1: low bridges and people doing crazy things. People hearing that
Speaker 1: street view was coming through, so they arrange for some
Speaker 1: sort of bizarre demonstration or or sword fire mooning, you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. But the thing is to people
Speaker 1: complain that they're taking photos of their houses without any permission.
Speaker 1: It's an invasion of privacy, as the argument. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: and so there you go. You you you know, suddenly
Speaker 1: your house is there and you can't opt out of it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know. Plus there are many many phone directories
Speaker 1: with with information in there. Uh they scrape phone books
Speaker 1: and you know their of course legitimate phone books as
Speaker 1: well phone directories online. So if you put two and
Speaker 1: two together, you can figure out where somebody lives and
Speaker 1: what their house looks like. Yeah. Now, if you've, if
Speaker 1: you've managed to stay unlisted and everything, then there may
Speaker 1: not be a connection between you the person and your
Speaker 1: wherever you call home. So but for the majority of people.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you know, with a little snooping, you
Speaker 1: could easily figure out where someone lives, and then through
Speaker 1: street view you can see you can actually see their
Speaker 1: their house, which I mean, you know, you can argue,
Speaker 1: well that let's let's let's potential thieves case the joint
Speaker 1: without ever leaving, um, leaving wherever they are. You know
Speaker 1: they can they can look it up and then get
Speaker 1: a real good view at least to the front of
Speaker 1: the house, maybe even the back of the house, depending
Speaker 1: on how your neighborhoods laid out. And you could use
Speaker 1: the satellite view in in one of the mapping services
Speaker 1: or in Google Earth to get an idea of the
Speaker 1: lay of the lands. So it's you know, it's one
Speaker 1: of those arguments where you make well, this this can
Speaker 1: make us less safe and and there that is a
Speaker 1: good argument for anonymity, saying that, well, I understand that
Speaker 1: there are uses for this technology and that um that
Speaker 1: it can come in handy and it's a fun technology,
Speaker 1: but there are also some serious consequences or there can
Speaker 1: be serious consequences to enabling this technology and immediately opting
Speaker 1: everyone in. It's not like you had a choice as
Speaker 1: far as street view is concerned. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: some very famous cases of towns that the essentially told
Speaker 1: Google to go uh google themselves and get the heck
Speaker 1: out of Dodge, although Dodge was not one of those towns.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and some gated communities places like that. In course,
Speaker 1: in in Europe, there have been many cases, um, in
Speaker 1: different countries in Europe where uh, you know, they they've
Speaker 1: taken Google to court and said, you do not have
Speaker 1: the authority to do this, um, you know, because it
Speaker 1: violates our country's privacy laws. So um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult, you know, on on, but it's there
Speaker 1: is a definite difference in um, you know, things like
Speaker 1: being signing up to be unlisted from your phone company
Speaker 1: and deciding to opt out of social networking services versus um,
Speaker 1: you know, what other people post about you online. And
Speaker 1: that's another thing too. You you can't control what other
Speaker 1: people do, um not yet, but I'm working on it.
Speaker 1: That's why I brought a crown in today. Yeah he did,
Speaker 1: sitting right on the table right between us right now. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, you know, I've had pictures tagged
Speaker 1: on Facebook, um, and you know, with my name on them,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of the point where I try to
Speaker 1: avoid having that done, and I go and remove the
Speaker 1: tags simply because I'm less comfortable being public than other
Speaker 1: people there. But I can that I think there's this, well,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure actually that Facebook has in its privacy
Speaker 1: settings a setting where you can go in and make
Speaker 1: sure that if someone wants to tag you in a
Speaker 1: photo that it has that requests your permission before the
Speaker 1: tag goes public. So you can actually tweak that setting,
Speaker 1: although like all Facebook privacy settings, it's not the easiest
Speaker 1: thing to find. You have to kind of do a
Speaker 1: little digging. Um. Google Plus is is kind of the
Speaker 1: same way in a sense, it's a lot easier to
Speaker 1: control who sees your information when you use Google Plus
Speaker 1: because you can just at every stage you can determine
Speaker 1: which bits of information are visible to others and which
Speaker 1: ones aren't and uh, and you can specify you know,
Speaker 1: which users can see it, like a circle or just
Speaker 1: a specific user. But even so, it's it's still a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff to wade through. Hey, guys, Jonathan two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, present day, looking back on the past. Before
Speaker 1: we conclude this discussion about anonymity, let's take another quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. Another thing about well, another
Speaker 1: argument you can make against anonymity. We we've already touched
Speaker 1: on this about the trolling, but if you really want
Speaker 1: to see and I don't recommend you do this, but
Speaker 1: if you if you want to see what the power
Speaker 1: of anonymity, you can go to a uh community like
Speaker 1: community like four chan. Yes, now, four chan is we've
Speaker 1: talked about before. It's a it's a message board that
Speaker 1: allows you to post things anonymously. You don't have to
Speaker 1: create an account. You can create a handle and you
Speaker 1: can either use the same handle or you can use
Speaker 1: a different handle every time you log in if you
Speaker 1: want to. Um, Actually, that would probably make you less
Speaker 1: likely to be traced because you're using a different one.
Speaker 1: You're not creating an identity for yourself. Is there a
Speaker 1: spout too, or just a handle? It's just a handle.
Speaker 1: It's actually two handles. I'm a sugar dish um. So
Speaker 1: the the idea here, but four chann is that you
Speaker 1: can share stuff without ever having to to link it
Speaker 1: back to yourself personally. And they actually have a couple
Speaker 1: of chann and not everything on four chan is is
Speaker 1: of objectionable material. Right. Uh, there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: on Fortune that's all about uh, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of its Japanese pop culture stuff, especially um manga and anime.
Speaker 1: But there are some channels in four chan, the random
Speaker 1: channel being the most famous channel where anything goes and
Speaker 1: people are using um anonymous handles in or or to
Speaker 1: post stuff, usually in order to get a reaction out
Speaker 1: of other people, um, either to make them laugh or
Speaker 1: to shock them, or to discuss them or whatever. But
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of about it's about as close to
Speaker 1: chaos as I can think of really. Um, not that
Speaker 1: it's not interesting or entertaining at times, but it's often
Speaker 1: very uh disturbing to look at. So you look at
Speaker 1: that and you say, well, if if maintaining anonymity on
Speaker 1: the web means getting this kind of reaction where you
Speaker 1: get the sort of of people trying to do whatever
Speaker 1: they can to get a reaction of other folks, that's
Speaker 1: an easy thing to point out and say, well, this
Speaker 1: is why we don't want anonymity, right. I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's misleading because it's it's stating that just
Speaker 1: because you want to be anonymous, you want to cause trouble,
Speaker 1: and I think that's you know, I don't think you
Speaker 1: can draw that conclusion, but I think that that's something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people who argue against anonymity, um,
Speaker 1: they will they will point their finger at places like
Speaker 1: or or sites like four chan and say, well, that's why.
Speaker 1: And I think that's shortsighted. I mean, I I just
Speaker 1: point to the political unrest in places like Egypt or
Speaker 1: uh Libya or Iran or Iraq, where you know, we've
Speaker 1: seen social networking come into play and help people, and say, well,
Speaker 1: this is where anonymity is really important. And without it, uh,
Speaker 1: it's possible that these people would have suffered more. It's
Speaker 1: possible that the world would have remained ignorant of what
Speaker 1: was going on for the most part, because we would
Speaker 1: just get mainstream media coverage of whatever those events were.
Speaker 1: And either, you know, you can be cynical. You could
Speaker 1: say that mainstream media just doesn't do a good job
Speaker 1: of covering that kind of information, and you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's an argument for a different podcast. Or you could
Speaker 1: say that mainstream media does an okay job, we just
Speaker 1: have become very good at ignoring it, cynical in a
Speaker 1: different away, or it could be a combination of the two. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not arguing any of those things, of just saying
Speaker 1: that without that, you know, if we had had the
Speaker 1: social media, without the social media, we all we'd have
Speaker 1: is the mainstream media approach. With the social media, it
Speaker 1: tends to put up even when it's anonymous, it puts
Speaker 1: a personal spin on these stories that tend to hook
Speaker 1: us as human beings into them. Yeah. And and I
Speaker 1: think it's also important for us to touch on enforcement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know, although Facebook and Google Plus are are
Speaker 1: currently requiring people to use, you know, a real name
Speaker 1: or at least the name they go by. Um, no,
Speaker 1: nobody's requiring a birth certificate. And even then, you know,
Speaker 1: a birth certificate could be faked. Um, let's not get
Speaker 1: into that. But I mean, yeah, I mean you could.
Speaker 1: You could doctor a document and send it into Facebook
Speaker 1: and say hey, so, nopsie, that's right, you real name. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, there there nobody's actually doing that. And
Speaker 1: I know people who don't use their real names on Facebook.
Speaker 1: And for a while there they were removing people. I
Speaker 1: assume they probably still are, but I remember it being
Speaker 1: a big thing a while back, a few months ago,
Speaker 1: maybe a year ago and I thought, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: my friend is going to have his profile removed. It
Speaker 1: never happened when it's clearly, you know, he goes by
Speaker 1: a band name, you know, the name of a character
Speaker 1: creative for the for a band that he's in, and
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, like the remote stage person it's a
Speaker 1: stage persona and it's clearly not a name. Well, which
Speaker 1: you could clearly you could do that for a fan
Speaker 1: page without any issue at all, but for a personal
Speaker 1: page that does tend to get a little like if
Speaker 1: people notice, they get or if people if if the
Speaker 1: company that is providing the service notices, you might have
Speaker 1: some issues. But some people with particularly unusual names I've
Speaker 1: been reading about Google Plus have had their profiles removed
Speaker 1: and actually it's their real name. Yea, let's happened. I
Speaker 1: mean there are some there's some fun names out there.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of my my my sister's vet Dr Stacy Stacy. Seriously, yeah,
Speaker 1: Stacy Stacy. Interesting. Yeah, she says everything twice twice. Check
Speaker 1: the papers, check the papers. Um she's at any rate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are issues where we see people who are
Speaker 1: legitimately following the rules, who being punished for not following
Speaker 1: the rules just because they happen to have an unusual name. Um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna fall find that pretty much in any kind
Speaker 1: of environment where they are requiring people to use real names.
Speaker 1: Just because you know, we're human beings, we come up
Speaker 1: with some interesting combinations for names. Sometimes we marry into them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we just luck out in our born into them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes our parents have a cruel since humor Moxi crime
Speaker 1: Fighter being a good one, Pen Gilette's daughter Moxi crime
Speaker 1: Fighter Gilette. That's true. I'm not making that. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't have any doubts since I don't remember some
Speaker 1: of the countries around the web Moon Unit Moon Units that.
Speaker 1: But that's what I meant. Um, yeah, they Yeah, they were.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing legislation in several countries where people were
Speaker 1: trying to name their kids things like Superman. Wow. Really
Speaker 1: um but but yeah, I mean, and it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to enforce that without requiring any kind of proof, and
Speaker 1: so they're sort of going through and going, well, I'm
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem like a real name, so you can
Speaker 1: go ahead a lot of guesswork. So yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that Google plus I Google seems like one of
Speaker 1: those companies that's really eager to please, and I think
Speaker 1: I think there are cases like this. Is This is
Speaker 1: also an issue Google Plus runs in too, when it
Speaker 1: opens up a private beta and the there's a disproportionate
Speaker 1: number of people in the private beta who are public personas,
Speaker 1: especially in the tech world, because you have people who
Speaker 1: are known by their brand. So Google Plus kind of
Speaker 1: brought it in on themselves in this case. But at
Speaker 1: least they're learning this lesson very early on before it
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast. They haven't gone open, they
Speaker 1: haven't opened up the social network yet, so hopefully this
Speaker 1: stuff will get ironed out so that UM, if you
Speaker 1: do want to use a nickname or a brand or
Speaker 1: something as your persona, you should be able to UM.
Speaker 1: There's been discussion at Google about finding ways of making
Speaker 1: that happen, although it may not. It may mean that
Speaker 1: you have to create a sort of profile that's not
Speaker 1: the same as a personal profile, kind of like on Facebook,
Speaker 1: where you have fan pages or group pages, and then
Speaker 1: you have your personal pages. UM, I think picture pages.
Speaker 1: I think the concern really I have is not um
Speaker 1: whether or not you could be anonymous on Google Plus,
Speaker 1: or on Facebook or whatever. My concern is that you
Speaker 1: start to see the generation of movers and shakers in
Speaker 1: the web space, like the Mark Zuckerberg's of the web,
Speaker 1: who say that they think that privacy is no longer
Speaker 1: a social norm. That concerns me. And the reason that
Speaker 1: concerns me is because that means that if that, if
Speaker 1: that attitude becomes prevalent throughout the web, then and then
Speaker 1: it will become a thing of the past in all
Speaker 1: but the smallest niche communities. So that's really where I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: not so much in the specific cases of Google and Facebook,
Speaker 1: but in a more general web wide case. And will
Speaker 1: we see anonymity get stamped out? I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think that will ever happen across the board, but I
Speaker 1: can certainly see privacy and anonymity taking kind of a
Speaker 1: uh diminished role in the future. Well I, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I personally like to retain a great deal of my privacy. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I do think that anonymity
Speaker 1: can breed a sense of um recklessness when when people
Speaker 1: are willing to say whatever they feel like they can
Speaker 1: get away with well without any kinds of repercussion and
Speaker 1: I don't I don't particularly approve of that. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, at the same time too, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that we have all given up
Speaker 1: our privacy and this is just the way things are
Speaker 1: going to be also encourages people to share too much information.
Speaker 1: You know, Hey, I'm going out of town for two weeks.
Speaker 1: Look at this. Here, here are pictures of my trip.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, and then two posts later, Oh,
Speaker 1: the police just called. Someone broke into my house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean if if if you go, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all public anyway, who cares? Then you know,
Speaker 1: you're I I think I don't think there's as much
Speaker 1: to discourage you from over sharing things that you shouldn't share. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: And and the Internet has made it so easy to
Speaker 1: share things as soon as you think of them that uh,
Speaker 1: that's that's also an issue. Like the Google Plus setting
Speaker 1: for your phone that instantly uploads any photo you take. Yes,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to have those shared publicly. You
Speaker 1: don't have to. But if you don't, yes, um yeah,
Speaker 1: the yes is getting easier and easier for you to
Speaker 1: to upload your thoughts immediately to the Internet without filtering
Speaker 1: them first, which is why whenever I make my social network,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a little window pup ups, do you
Speaker 1: really want to post that? And when you click yes,
Speaker 1: do you really really want to post that? And then
Speaker 1: when you click yes it it posts. And then at
Speaker 1: the very end it says if this is stupid, it's
Speaker 1: not because I didn't tell him. So well, that's that's
Speaker 1: why I started my own anti social network and I
Speaker 1: am I am the only member, right uh, and that
Speaker 1: is unlikely to change, right, It's just it's just it's
Speaker 1: just me. It's just a black web page. You go
Speaker 1: to the web page, there's nothing on it. It's just
Speaker 1: it's just black. Well, it saves me a lot of
Speaker 1: time because they don't have to check it very often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. There is at the very bomb, if you
Speaker 1: scroll all the way down and it's long, there's an
Speaker 1: under construction boom shovel digging with the hard hat because
Speaker 1: we're gonna bring geo cities back one web page at
Speaker 1: a time. And that is the classic episode of tech
Speaker 1: Stuff about anonymity. I hope you guys enjoyed it big
Speaker 1: thanks to my original co host, Chris Poulette, who I
Speaker 1: always enjoyed having conversations with on or off the microphone.
Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, let me know send me an email. The
Speaker 1: address for the show is tech Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, or drop me a line on Facebook
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