Is Anonymity Really Necessary?

Does anyone really want Jumpman knowing who they are in RL?

So does instinct. If you have an odd instinct about someone, and your logical brain is screaming that there is no REASON to have this feeling - trust that feeling anyway, and get away!

And yes, online, it's much harder.

coco

Well, I'm stopping here in my reading. (I've been taking notes for a later post, and only stopped so far to put in that plug for paying attention to one's instincts.)

I can assure you, Merchant, that you can scratch my surface all you want, but you will find safety as the ONLY reason I choose anonymity in large populations such as SL.

The personal risk argument is not done tongue-in-cheek; nobody lives in Baghdad.

Maybe it is because you aren't female? Or very old? Or something, but for whatever reason, you've apparently never had this happen to you.

And believe me, when it DOES happen to a person, they are KICKING themselves for being so stupid as to have given out the personal identifying information in the first place.

To STRANGERS. On the Internet.

Now, I give my personal identification to Internet friends of long-standing - years standing, on the internet. I have met literally dozens of people from the Internet, and had many of them to my house.

I'm also female, though, and responsible for children, too. I've been lucky irl, but I have had plenty of close calls, and I defy you to find one female (I never have) who hasn't had one of these close calls irl, if not actually raped.

THAT is how pervasive it is.

And these stalkers are online in full force, and every female (and male, for that matter) had best bear that in mind.

I had a stalker in another online game, and was HORRIFIED to discover that he was in fact insane, and in fact had a record with the FBI, and had in fact turned on me. Thinking back, I realized I had probably inadvertently exposed enough information that he MIGHT have been able to trace me.

At the time, my daughters were still young. Do you have any idea how bad I felt once I realized I might have brought harm to my whole family, and my young daughters, due to blabbing too much to someone who turned out to be a psycho?

And that was WITHOUT giving info on purpose.

To suggest that anyone who prefers to keep their real-life identity to themselves for any reason OTHER than simple safety measures is extraordinarily insulting, even if simply comments born of knowing no better.

coco

OK, well, Chip - the risk and benefit: There IS no significant benefit to my giving everyone else in SL my real name and possibly address.

coco

Okay, now, from my notes (yes, I'm a dork):

Now that I have read the other posts, let me add a few things.

1. Yes, I would say stalking episodes are much more frequent online than they are irl, primarily because the stalker himself/herself finds it so easy to remain anonymous.

2. When I go out on the street – or let’s say, to the mall – I’m not forced to wear a sign with my name, address, and other identifying facts on my person. It would be foolish, foolhardy, and frankly STUPID to offer one’s identifying info to a passel of strangers, anywhere – irl or online.

3. The real problem in SL is that a large part of, if not most of, the SL population is anonymous to LL. THEY are the ones who need to know who everyone is!

coco

That's why I never ask questions of a personal nature beyond what is available in a profile. I'm really not interested in how old you are where, you live beyond the general area, what you do, what gender you are or what your marital status is. I can talk to you about any subject that may be of interest, be it art, politics, music, film, current events without knowing any of that. Conversely, the information in my profile should be enough to give you an idea of what I'm about. if someone asks questions I don't want to answer, I politely decline and disengage if necessary. Any personal information that may come out in the course of the interaction is merely incidental, and I take it as it's given. I'm not looking to share your RL, so I don't need to know about it.The real issue as it has been stated, is LL's unwillingness and /or inability to identify all of us to their knowledge and to police the world they have created. They, in my opinion are the biggest obstacle to any hopes of SL becoming the "Whatever" they envision it to be.

Firstly, regarding the car comment, yes car accidents do happen, and yes, if you know someone who has been killed or injured in one, you would be stupid not to take more care. But cmparing murders/stalking to this is naive and insulting to victims of crime. You have a sense of control over driving a car which is not present when some nutcase decides to abduct and violently stab to death you or a friend. Honestly, these comments just confirm my belief that unless it's happened to you, people will just make uninformed and insulting remarks.

To someone like me, statistics mean nothing when you have had a best friend violently taken from you. Maybe it's something you will never really understand unless it has happened to you, but making remarks about living in Baghdad, because there are so many comments about stalking/murders that have happened to residents and their friends is so insulting and rude I just can't believe someone would say that.

I'm guessing a lot of the impetus behind wanting to know about one's RL nature is cybersex. People who want to somehow make sure the gorgeous blonde or glorious hunk they're exchanging sweet whatever with is not in fact a profusely sweating, fat, middle-aged guy in his proverbial Mom's basement operating the keyboard with his off hand.

If so, they are doomed to failure. THERE IS NO SURE WAY TO KNOW.

Which is what makes me glad I don't need or want cybersex.

But I can see their problem.

I'd say my video tutorial is a bit of an obvious note to my RL physical gender.. age could be discerned as wel though not exactly...

(My voice is obviously male... and I have the vid as my web tab atm. Someone confronted me on it earlier today)

I don't think it'll be cybersex. It'll be real sex!. Ewww!

Humans are perverts!

Its possible to have RL sex without even telling the person your full name.

His RL identity is no secret. What's your point here?



OK, if you want objective criteria, then quantify that for us. Then quantify the number of avs that wouldn't be in SL at all if their RL name were on their profile, and the resulting cost to SL as a whole. Let me know when you have good hard numbers.

And I'm not talking about throwing up our hands. I'm saying that there are human values that don't depend on statistics, and that aren't objective. Knowing the stats can be helpful, but saying that they imply a position is ignoring human values.

Ayn Rand proposed that value is objective. She was a very smart cookie, but very wrong.

And I stand by my guess that having our RL names in our profiles would cause more serious harm than lack of it.

BTW, I *do* feel that LL should have an indicator of our identities, i.e., via payment info on file. If that's all you were arguing for, then we're quibbling over rhetoric rather than disagreeing on the end result. But I don't think that information should be public, and if it was, it would cause far more harm than good. I.e., RL harm, not just loss of a few lindens or a few days playing out our online lives.

And finally, of those who lost money to Ginko, well, it's not like they weren't warned. A fool and his money are soon parted. (Signed, one of the fools, but one who blames nobody other than himself, and who didn't risk more than he was willing to lose.)

Okay, for people who have businesses I guess they like to have exact information for some reason or other about everyone else.
But I just dont get this whole thing - SL exists by its anonymity. Who cares who we are in real life? What does it gain you? I travel on the underground in London and say "Hi" to people and even see some everyday but I dont wanna know the intimacies and addresses of them. When I am far from the madding crowd I dont shout out who I am to all and sundry other travellers.
Let's treat SL like Real if you like and keep our privacy to ourselves - even, yes!, even to our lovers. I am not gonna divulge all my private info even to my latest bed partner. Would you????

The reason against it is simple: griefers hide behind anonymity. Note that I don't think our RL identities should be public, I'm just pointing out that those who feel this way do have a justification.

A great thread.

"RL" identities on the internet can easily be faked. The best you can do is give land owners IP reporting and the ability to ban IPs. This the way the rest of the internet handles it. Is there a JIRA for this?

Interesting Lear, but I don't buy it. Griefing has always been in SL. Maybe newbies are shocked and stunned that we all act like a pack of rabid mice and indulge our fantasies. Maybe they can't believe that some people actually "grief". My SL partner and I were once griefed by a neo-nazi, for heaven's sake - but I didn't wanna find out who he( or she) really was. And it didn't stop me being here anymore than meeting one in the streets of London would want me to stop living in the real world.
Nope, I'll take the anonymity. Business here is risky business. Building a house here is risky also. In a strange and odd way, this desire for actuality and disclosure is just part of the "taming" of SL. People who are naturally effusive and imaginative are being relegated to role-play sims rather than just being a part of the everyday sl world; knowing who we really are just means we become a "real" neighbours - and I prefer to keep my neighbours behind their fences. It doesn't make us more "intimate".

Isablan

Doesnt that just show who that person REALLY is, even without knowing who it is???

Anonymous = Real face?

Maggie

Griefing is of course WAYYYY over-hyped.

Except for grid attacks, its pretty easy for a land owner (or group member) to deal with it.

Anonymity is appropriate in some cases and not others. For role-play it's just the thing. When it comes to business matters I think a bit more linkage to the RL person is a good idea. Things like Ginko and the looming WSE collapse would be a lot less likely to happen if the business director's RL name & identity were made available. Similarly RL ID linkage would help put an end to land scammers and the like.

As for myself I'm not terribly bothered and I take an approach similar to Travis Lambert's. In my case I publically link my SL Alazarin account to my RL identity because I perform my music live in SL and use it to promote my creations. That said I also have 'anonymous' alts that I use for mooching around and I want to keep them that way.

The possibilites for identity theft, stalking, impersonation and fraud do bother me but you get all that happening in RL already. Eventually laws will be drafted and enabled to deal with such things but it's early days yet so it pays to be that little bit extra cautious when dealing with people in SL.

Even in a business relationship there isn't total disclosure. Major transactions, of courese both parties know who the other is, there is often paperwork and such. But for everyday purchases, you can go into a store, pay cash and no one knows who you are. The owner of an SL shoe shop only needs to know if I have the Lindens to cover the purchase. No one I interact with in SL NEEDS to know who I am in RL. Those that I feel should have this knowledge will get it at my discretion. That being said, ther should be accountabilty for actions. I want to know that if someone wrongs me seriously, I can report them to LL and they will be dealt with. Who they are in RL is unimportant. If it is of a nature that some sort of legal action is needed, hat's what lawyers and subpeonas are for. But my RL identity being readily available for any resident to obtain. I say," Nay, Nay." My business will go elsewhere.

I could see requiring the availability of real life name of anyone opening a "Investment fund" by whatever lame name they were using (bank/stock exchange, etc.)

Course LL should just go one step further and ban the lot of them for being impossible to police havens of fraud.

An entirely separate discussion, but in my book that answer is yes. I know everything I need to know about someone by the way they behave when they think no one knows who they are.

It would be interesting to hear from someone like Chip, who has been one of the most levelheaded and thoughtful people in this thread exactly what he would do if he were in cahrge of fixing this, provided he , by the grace of the TAO, wanted to do it.

That's all I'm saying, though I think the OP was arguing in favor of more than that and I think he has some very interesting points about how anonymity being the default might have negative consequences that limit SL's growth or adoption as an alternative to the wider web. While being anonymous isn't important to me personally, it's obviously very important to many and I have no problem with that. There are many valid reasons for wanting it. I don't mean to give the impression that I'm advocating anything one way or the other. I've just been trying to suggest other ways of looking at the issue for the sake of interesting discussion, and I would like to see LL take steps to make the grid safer from fraud and harassment. I don't see any reason why that would require avatar to avatar disclosure on anything but a voluntary basis. Unverified accounts, ulimited alts, and lack of enforcement are the real culprits there.



People who've been touched by tragedy are quite understandably unable to look at it in an unemotional and objective way.

Let me preface my statements by saying I am only speaking for myself and from my own perspective...

I've been using the internet, like many of you, for quite some time (since the early 90's). For many years, I tried to maintain strict anonymity online. The reason why I wanted to maintain anonymity, to be frank, is because I was doing things online that I wasn't proud of doing. I was representing myself to be someone I wasn't and behaving in a way that would bring shame to me (in my mind) if it were ever brought to my friend/family's attention.

That being said, I've learned alot from my anonymous internet experiences. The main lesson being that there are other sides of my personality besides the persona that I tend to show to my friends and family... and there's nothing wrong with those other sides. Being anonymous online actually allowed me to see how diverse and accepting our society can be of many different lifestyles, ideas and opinions. I've also made some pretty amazing friends along the way. All of which now know both sides (online and real) and are probably better/closer friends to me than anyone that I initially met in a face to face encounter.

At this point, I have some seperation between RL and SL due to basic safety precautions. Outside of that, I am who I am online (and have been for the past couple years). Latasha is my RL name and I'm as forthcoming as is reasonable when I speak to others in Second Life. As someone else said here, in an earlier post, I am pretty good about using my gut feel to determine if someone is out to harm me. It isn't 100% but I've done pretty well thus far.

I would never begrudge someone else the right to be anonymous online. I find that anonymity in online encounters can be extremely therapeutic. It allows us to explore, without fear of rejection. In many ways, it allows us to be more of our true selves than we can ever be in our real life. For me, however, the need for the therapeutic escape is rather limited. I have made an alt AV just to explore a bit and quickly got bored of 'not being me'.