Facebook and SL: the balkanization of our world?

I can see giving some verifiable RL info to LL making a difference here, but I don't see that it would be necessary that that same info be made "public." Do we really want people pursuing business quarrels that start in SL in RL? It should be handled through LL, I think, instead.


I think you've anticipated my objection to this suggestion here. I also don't think that it's the application's job to ensure honesty in relationships; that seems a bit Big Brotherish to me, maybe.


Ok, now you are just pushing my buttons!

I've thought about this aspect myself, and I agree that there probably would be some slight impact on the numbers of those engaged in things like rape play here. But, again, the objection that you yourself raise in the point immediately above -- that it's fairly easy to get around using an RL identity without real verification (such as PIOF) -- would be true here too. There is no shortage of really horrendous stuff online now that people access, often despite having to pay for it through Paypal or credit card. Unless the public info available were directly tied into a pretty tight verification process, it would still be pretty easy to fake an ID. People do it online now all the time.

It would also, it should be said, greatly impede the ability of everyone, including women, to "experiment" in more benign ways in SL. This IS one of the attractions of the app: that people can explore sides of their sexuality here that they would not want known in RL. Some of these ARE unsavory, to be sure, but others -- as for example same sex relationships -- are entirely valid.

Finally, however, there is another more important aspect to this relating to women's issues, and that is the safety one. Making it incumbent upon women to provide RL info really puts them into potential danger by greatly increasing the ease -- and likelihood -- of RL harassment or stalking. It happens even now, when too much contact or identity info is released inadvertently, or ill-advisedly; I think the danger of abusive relationships in SL spilling into RL would increase exponentially if RL info was directly available. On this basis alone, were public RL info mandatory, I'd strongly advise women not to get involved in relationships in SL.

Just in case anybody thinks sharing RL info means sharing *real* RL info:

I was Philip Linden on Facebook for a while. A bunch of other Lindens tried to friend me, some with linden.com emails, some surname-sharing civilians, and probably some poseurs just like me.

I'm losing track of the premise here. Is it that the Facebookers will have an SL persona linked to the (possibly fictitious) RL identity they use in Facebook, and will therefore behave differently in-world, in terms of their interests and corresponding purchasing habits? I can see that happening, and (as I mentioned) I can see some commercial opportunities that would advance.

But as long as there is the possibility of creating SL accounts not publicly linked to a single "true" RL identity, I think there will remain an irresistible drive to do that, either with SL alts or with additional Facebook/SL/Twitterati online personae only nominally "real." And some of them will find their way to Zindra and Lusk and the Cartel Hangout with all the rest of us.

(Some may even discover the liberating effect of disabling voice, but that's a rant for a different thread.)

Having new people come to SL by social network should be 'the second golden age' of growth for SL. LL will get to post these huge growth numbers as thousands-tens of thousands of new accounts are made.

The oldbies will be harassed with a barrage of "how do you open this shopping bag," and "help me please, how do I take the bag off of my head" questions. There will be thousands of muff shots in PG areas because the newbies won't know that undies are a necessity with that shinny new shin and short skirt. Some guy will start a web site with up skirt shots thinking its an original idea. The griefer population will sky rocket.

The real name/fake name debate will slowly die out as Facebookers integrate into the their new world of fake names. Two hundred 'child avatar' threads will be started in the forums and all the 'child avatar war veterans' will be there to hi-jack the threads to argue about how the topic has already been argued to death. Basic accounts will be attacked in one form or another in the forums because all these damned FaceBookers are coming in for free and leeching off the established SL society.

Eventually only a small percentage of the new accounts will be active on a regular basis. SL will settle back down to the chaos that it is now. Residents will be classed either pre or post Facebookers. There will not be one big Facebook click but whatever clicks that exist there now will be the new clicks of SL. Some very good creators will have been added to our little world and the grid will be two times the currant size with 900,000 active accounts. LL will release a statement stating that their announcement of 3.5 million users was based on imaginary number manipulation.

All in all I look forward to the time when FaceBookers try out SL in doves. Maybe Pep will make some in world friends and leave the poor lost souls of the forums to some peace and quiet.

*laughs at Qie being Philip ... brilliant!* I think the premise under discussion here is: what would an immense influx of people from a social networking site like Facebook, who tie their SL avatar to a presumed real identity, do to SL? [Qie, I think merry pranksters like yourself are actually rather rare on FB. So far as I can see, most FBers present their FB identity as corresponding to a real person, or real organization. Whether that identity is actually real is secondary, is it not, since the typist wants to present them as real?

And, as you can see below, I'm insistent that a barrier between reality and SL is key to much social good that SL accomplishes.

/rant on
OK. Lets say you have your real name, and your brother who has always dumped on everything you tried in your life looked you up, and brought a pal over to crap all over the build you just spent 2 weeks doing.

Maybe you have always suspected you were gay, and thought SL might be a good place to find out if you enjoy even a simulated gay experience. Would you want your RL name over your head while you tried it?

Maybe everyone has always been telling you that you have talent as a RL photographer and should give up your job in the collection agency and go for it ... but you've never done it because you're afraid of failing. In SL you could quietly develop some confidence that others appreciate your eye ... if you were anonymous. If you had your real name, your friends would be sure to come and be "supportive" all over you.

Or let's say you are a middle-aged mid-level manager at a multinational company. You have a staff of, say, 70 people. You come to SL once or twice a week for a mini-vacation .. you wear miniskirts, do lucky chairs and have a tenement in Suffugium because it's so unlike your RL contemporary in Palo Alto. You sometimes retreat to your build box to try to build a harpsichord. It's an awful attempt, but you're having fun. Sooooo ... you want your employees to drop by your SL, or not?

Maybe you're Ugly Betty - a homely person with a great instinct for fashion. In SL you could not only dress to match your taste without people laughing at you, you could develop your own label. It would be fun, net you a little money, and maybe spur you on to do as much as possible about your RL looks. But, sadly, your RL pic, available elsewhere even if not in your SL profile, puts the kabosh on all that.

I could go on ...

Opps I forgot to make the point that SL already has a "First Life" tab and personal website in your profile. These are the perfect places to link to your FB account and put RL details. Or am I missing the point of those being in the existing profile?

ED-Mine will stay blank as it is now.

I CAN NOT WAIT FOR SL & FACEBOOK TO BECOME ONE!!!!


IMagine the fun at work when an employer finds out you're a furry who enjoys "yiffing" or a Gorean, or an Escort or into playing a child online!!!

OH What fun we shall have!!!

My FB self info gets integrated with my SL info.... and now I have foreign telemarketers or WORSE, calling my house, or trying to snag my bank account.

YAY!!!!

I think LL, quite rightly, would be looking at finding the widest possible range of applications of the SL type platform. I know that there are different ways that people interact with their Second Life - maybe the Facebook-style users could have their own continent one day.

Maybe Facebook would be one of the potential users for the behind-the-firewall Second Life Enterprise.

Qie is such a little scamp sometimes.

Regarding RL names not being unique.

I believe the accounts are keyed off of email addresses.

I have a myspace (Tarsha is there yay!), a facebook, and a linkedin account.

A recent study indicates younger and blue collar folks uses myspace, middle class uses facebook, and the wealthy powerful people that decide things and make the real money use linkedin.

A search of linkedin returned this result:
0 results for mark klingdon

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but shouldn't LL be trying to get SL usable for the people who do log on before they do some big push for more people?

Isn't one of the biggest problems with retention in SL the first few hours? Why make a big push for more people when you can't keep the people who already try out the platform? For every one person who made it thru their first week in SL and tell the one friend they think might be interested in it, there are 9 people who gave up in the first week and tell everyone they know what a joke SL is.

LL always seems to be chasing something else while neglecting the people who actually use their platform. If they spent half as much time really looking into their own platform and working towards making it function properly, consistently and reliably, maybe they wouldn't have to chase after numbers.

Not too surprising. There are 7 results for "Mark Kingdon" including one purporting to be "CEO, Linden Lab (effective 5/15)".

Linden Logic (tm)

Given what Mark Pincus has said about how he got his funding and how he does business, I wouldn't look if he said my tail was on fire.

The big problem is that essentially there are people on Facebook who simply would never be interested in something like SL.

Out of my rl friends on FB many might play the occasional console platformer but that's their limit.

For people who FB games are their only real experience of videogames they probably in the same demographic as most Wii players. Nothing suggests to me that they'd be likely to migrate to any kind of virtual world, be it SL, Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online etc.

Add to that many FB'ers use it from phones. Not sure if SL could port to a mobile platform.

Project much?

Project much?\People can run scams and rip content for years without even losing their throwaway account, let alone getting their IP or credit card embargoed by LL. It's not the lack of a real identity that keeps them around, it's the complete lack of enforcement.

I don't use my RL name in SL, or in many other places on the Internet, after getting raked over the coals by our CEO about 15 years ago for making the wrong _honest_ comment about some technology that we happened to be using. I don't want my leisure time google-able by my boss. If I had to use my real name to get into SL, I wouldn't be here.

I'd be finding another hobby. I'm not hiding what I am either, but SL is my private litte theme park, no one in know in RL plays it that I know of, and I don't discuss it with anyone. I prefer it that way. If there is a need to disclose RL info to another SL user, I can do so aready..privately. There is NO need for everyone on the grid to know who we are in RL. LL should know and that's all.

Some people have complained that these aren't searchable so people can't find them that way. Which is a valid complaint.

I don't know how many people have them filled out, though, I don't look at them.

Damn, my LinkedIn account hasn't made me wealthy and powerful.

Ahh must add that to the TwitterFace HUD, RL name, Email, Number of friends and groups, MSN & Skype names all in hovertext above avatars heads

I've met many gay men in SL who are still in the closet in RL. I can't imagine them risking Rl info getting out.

Worse, I've also met younger generation gay men who have no appreciation for what it was like trying to come out for men of my generation. They may get the need for secrecy on an abstract level, but they still wind up not respecting or befriending those gay men who are still in the closet. But that's only an issue when people feel pressured into giving up RL info.

It's great that the world is evolving to the point that staying in the closet is becoming a foreign concept, but I still believe SL is a safer, healthier place because RL anonymity between avs is considered the norm. (And, as others have pointed out, anonymity between avs doesn't preclude RL identification between users and LL.)

I agree that the possibility of being stalked is a good argument in favor of permitting false names. Likewise with the possibility of facing persecution for one's sexual orientation.

As for people wanting a false name so that they can avoid embarrassment when they participate in sexual conduct that's not universally accepted: I guess so. There are lines it would be reasonable to draw there (and LL does, with regard to depictions of child sex. I'm less thrilled that LL is 'okay' with sexual practices that require depictions of mutilation and torture, but that's an argument for another thread).

The thing is: many Facebook fans already feel perfectly free to post 'less than universally-accepted' sexual material under their own names. They don't seem to care that their parents, employer, and future employers can see it. It seems likely that they'll be similarly carefree about participating in any and all sexual activities in SL under their own names.

But of course we who are less Facebooky may not care to be forced to be just like the Facebookers.


LL will face a dilemma if they determine that a major reason Facebook fans are uninterested in SL is that they can't use their own names. (I suppose such a person would say something along the lines of "if my friends can't find me and I can't show off my amazing tastes and creativity under my own name and no one can see how many friends I have, then what's the point???"

If this is true, then LL will probably try letting people register for SL with their own names.

The big question will become: will LL try to impose this on everyone?

Would there be any particular reason for imposing it on everyone?

I just don't understand why this is such a big deal. You have your Facebook Avatar (nice, normal) and you have your alts for behind closed doors. What is the problem? You CAN have more than one account, you know