Re:A high school student created a fake 2020 candidate, and ...
by eitland on Friday February 28, 2020 @08:14PM
(#22447939)
> I don’t want to waste my time talking to accounts under pseudonyms..
I've been thinking about this a lot after newspapers started demanding full names.
What I think I see is that full name policies correlate with more toxicity. This might sound counterintuitive at first but there is a really simple explanation:
- Smart people are careful.
- Less smart people care less.
- The same goes for people who have extremely strong opinions.
- Finally a lot of trolls can live just fine with a made up name that resembles a real one.
Full name policies optimize for trolls, dumb people and people who have very strong opinions.
If real name policies was a good idea, Facebook and the comments in online newspapers should be nice and HN, lobste.rs and Ars Technica should be really ugly and dumb.
I've been thinking about this a lot after newspapers started demanding full names.
What I think I see is that full name policies correlate with more toxicity. This might sound counterintuitive at first but there is a really simple explanation:
- Smart people are careful.
- Less smart people care less.
- The same goes for people who have extremely strong opinions.
- Finally a lot of trolls can live just fine with a made up name that resembles a real one.
Full name policies optimize for trolls, dumb people and people who have very strong opinions.
If real name policies was a good idea, Facebook and the comments in online newspapers should be nice and HN, lobste.rs and Ars Technica should be really ugly and dumb.
The opposite would actually be more true.