Real names policy

Real Names is an online social networking policy where community sites, such as Citizendium, Google, and Facebook, ask users to register and post under their real names.

Criticism?

While Citizendium pioneered in 2007 a real names policy in the hopes that such a policy would create a kinder social environment than what was going on at Wikipedia, this policy has caught on among the big social networking sites. Both Facebook and Google have introduced real names policies in 2010 or 2011. But, quickly, these policies became ridiculous and the backlash to them became known as the Nym Wars. One example of the insane levels to which Facebook, for instance, has taken the policy was when it required internationally renown author Salman Rushdie to use his birth name ("Ahmed Rushdie") on its site. Clearly, this policy has been taken to extremes. The policies are more about Facebook's control over its users than any sort of social environment that a real names policy would facilitate.

See

Alexis Madrigal, "Facebook Tells Salman Rushdie He Has to Go by His Given Name, Ahmed Rushdie," The Atlantic, November 14, 2011.

Alexis Madrigal, "Why Facebook and Google's Concept of 'Real Names' is Revolutionary," The Atlantic, August 5, 2011.

Cory Doctorow, "Understanding the Nym Wars," BoingBoing, August 20, 2011.

Jillian C. York, "A Case for Pseudonyms," Electronic Frontier Foundation, July 29, 2011