Danah Boyd: "'Real names' policies are an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people"
Ethnographin Danah Boyd hat einen sehr interessanten Kommentar zur Debatte über Klarnamenzwang / Pseudonymverbot bei Google+ und Facebook geschrieben. Wichtiger Einwurf: Wie kommen weiße Mittelschichtsmänner (und Frauen) eigentlich dazu, ohne weitere Belege zu behaupten, Klarnamen wären doch super für alle?
Ich muss dabei an meine Einbürgerung mit drei Jahren denken: Der Beamte riet damals meiner Mutter dringend, Konrad Paweł Liszka zu Konrad Paul Lischka zu machen, um Probleme zu vermeiden.
Over and over again, people keep pointing to Facebook as an example where “real names” policies work. This makes me laugh hysterically. One of the things that became patently clear to me in my fieldwork is that countless teens who signed up to Facebook late into the game chose to use pseudonyms or nicknames. What’s even more noticeable in my data is that an extremely high percentage of people of color used pseudonyms as compared to the white teens that I interviewed. Of course, this would make sense… The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. “Real names” policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.
via danah boyd | apophenia » “Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power.