This week, there was a massive player response to Blizzard's intentions of having Real Names be part of the player's posting which you will see here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1
If you took a few hours, (Yes, hours) to read some of it... A fair deal of people have had issues with it, myself included. There were some who felt there was nothing wrong with it.
Their reasoning: It makes the trolls fear or not post on the forums.
Well, here is the thing. Yes, anonymity has 'empowered' people to be jerks, feeling like they can do whatever they want without repercussions of retribution. However, the Real Name associated with posting introduces a new problem, one listed off with many people posting in that forum.
For instance, several of the players on that forum have mention the following concerns:
Being a Female (On a Gaming Forum)
Being a Minor
Being of a Minority Ethnicity
Having been Harassed
Have been stalked
Having been Hacked
Being Transgendered (In the game)
Many of you wonder, what do these things have to do with having your name on a forum?
Well, first off, let's point to the first two items, being either a Female or a Minor.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/06/predator-met-16/
http://exgamer.net/blog/?p=1314
These are two articles relating to Minors and one being a minor and a female. While real names are not in place, these incidents happen. The introduction of real names allow predators, stalkers and the like to find their targets easier.
The most common response to this concern, "You are overreacting." Unfortunately, the above is only a small sample of things found on the internet. The other thing to consider is the fact that there are numerous people who read forums that cater to minors, such as games, that allow sexual predators to seek minors. It happens all the time.
There are also people who have low impulse control. Case in point:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/04/01/2003248619
One could say, "It's the chinese... They aren't Americans..." Need I remind people that Columbine happened. I am not one to say games make people killers, as I am a gamer. But to say "It's someone else..." is not something we can say. Anyone out there can have their fit of rage, their snapping point. Having the name of another person, to help in tracking down a person down to do vile things... Things like this can happen.
Again, it isn't overreaction, but the necessity to protect people from others.
Now, there is a mention of the South Korean Law made back in 2009 about Real Names to help stop cyber-bullying. A couple of the articles I have read point to the necessity for the law. However there is something I noticed with the articles referencing the law.
On Youtube forums, the following came up:
I live and work in Korea but am an American. My user name is piriajeoshi, but my full real name, Allen Bruce Ray is on view in my profile. In the past couple of months, I noticed that every time I try to comment on videos or respond to comments on my own, I get this error message: "본인확인제로 인해 한국 국가 설정시 동영상/댓글 업로드 기능을 자발적으로 비활성화합니다. We have voluntarily disabled this functionality on kr.youtube.com because of the Korean real-name verification law." I searched HELP for a way to circumvent this and saw a post that suggested I change my country to United States. I did this, but it didn't help. I'm on a Korean IP. Is there now no way I can effectively use text to communicate with my subscribers or make comments? This is extremely frustrating!
Basically, South Korean law says that anyone signing up to a website with more than a certain number of members must officially verify their real name -- just putting it in a profile isn't enough, you actually need to produce ID
From this posting, the Username was not given as theirs, just in the profile they put in their Real Name. The clarification given for the law, however, is that for the user, it wasn't JUST the name, but some verifiable proof that the person is who they say they are. IE: Some form of verifiable ID to link your name properly to the account posting.
This is what YouTube and Google viewed as a breach of personal privacy. It required 'more' information to 'prove' who you were, not just the name. And the reasoning for this is to prevent protesters and cyber-criminals from posting anonymously, IE: without some form of 'proof' of who you were, especially if you abuse a system in such a way.
Now, this is something that has to be addressed and understood. I am not advocating that people should be completely anonymous, but at the same time, people should have the choice of what is shared. The proof of who you are should also be limited. This is for protection of the users, to avoid leaving people 'open' to elements that neither we nor the company who is hosting the forum, can control.
Now I do expect the company to give up information about users to the law when it is shown that the user in question is a danger to him/herself or to another user, however it there is no justification to sacrifice a user's real name to give a false sense of security for some, and open people to be singularly targeted.
No comments:
Post a Comment