You're viewing old version number 9. - Current version
Facebook might experiment with anonymity
Seems like an odd philosophical choice, but as a publicly-traded company, it might be a practical business decision.
Randi Zuckerberg said back in July 2011 when she worked at Facebook:
"I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. ... I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors."
Her claim about people behaving better online when they use their real names is obviously false.
May 2012 Businessweek story
Every Zuckerberg hack is in the service of an overarching vision: that technology and online authenticity can bring people together. And the easier it is for people to find one another, the more time they’ll spend online, sharing photos of their kids, their moods, what they read, who they date, and on and on with all the people they have met in their life (or, if they neglect their privacy settings, with the whole world).Zuckerberg sought to build a youthful company that could understand and embrace future technological waves as well as bypass generational resistance over sharing and privacy. He believed that Internet users would eventually be less guarded in the way they used the new social services that were popping up online
The openness and lack of privacy viewpoints may have changed for some young people. And quickly too. Maybe that's the reason why Facebook is now looking at supporting anonymity in some fashion.
2010 story
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December.
Mark Zuckerberg has always embraced the idea of real identities and openness.
April 2014 - Facebook Explores Anonymity Features
Facebook spent years defining what it means to have an online identity. Now with the surge in popularity of anonymous social apps, Facebook may be spending the next few figuring out how to deal with the complete opposite case.The social networking giant has expressed interest in exploring how it can develop anonymity services.
This comes at a time when anonymous messaging services have grown more popular. Facebook, Whisper, Secret and others are particularly interested in the types of conversations people feel more liberated to engage in when they no longer need to identify themselves.
That’s attractive for Facebook, which has also tried to mimic the types of conversations found on sites like Reddit or, to some degree, Twitter. But it’s difficult to see how Facebook — a company that has spent a decade building the exact opposite type of anonymous platforms — can accomplish something like this.
By JR
- 461 words
created:
- updated:
source
- versions
Related articles
Facebook might experiment with anonymity - Apr 04, 2014
Web-based communication and businesses - Oct 02, 2013
More about comments and anonymity - Mar 03, 2014
Google+ as of April 2014 - May 27, 2014
January 2013 articles about commenting systems - Jan 15, 2014
more >>