Blackmoor Vituperative

On the one hand, I don’t think anyone who is wealthier than 99% of the country should be making decisions for the other 99% of us. On the other hand, if we put a salary/net worth cap on who could run for public office, I think the end result is that our ostensibly-elected rulers would be even more corrupt and incompetent than they are now. I honestly have no idea what to do to fix this great nation.

In a nation of laws, where fundamental principles of fairness and equality under the law are sacrosanct, where everyone has the same access to the courts and has to follow the same laws, libertarianism is the best and most ethical basis for a government that provides the best outcome to the most people, and imposes the fewest obstacles for people to better themselves and to help those who are worse off than themselves.

The problem is, we do not live in a nation like that. Our society has never been perfect, but at its core, it used to be based on principles of fairness, and hard work, and individual rights. The day to day operation of our society often conflicted with those principles, but gradually, those flaws would be brought to light, old ways would be challenged, and things would get better. The society we were was slowly turning into the society we aspired to be. Liberty, and honor, and justice were leading us from darkness toward the light. Slowly, to be sure, but we were on the right path.

I am not sure exactly when this ceased to be the case, but I think this is no longer true. The foundation on which our society is built is corroded and crumbling. Our legislatures pass laws to which they make themselves exempt. Media outlets give us the news they want us to see, and truth is irrelevant. We allow ourselves to be distracted by trivia, or blinded by superstition, while we revel in our ignorance. We are engaged in an endless and expensive war against everything. Corporations reap tremendous financial rewards while stripping both their employees and their customers of their basic human and civil rights — right to privacy, right to a jury trial, right to a personal life, right to earn an honest living, etc. — and it’s perfectly “legal”. We imprison more of our population than any country on Earth, for nonviolent offenses, and we use them as slave labor for corporations.

(You might think some of the previous paragraph is hyperbole. I am sometimes too fond of hyperbole. But in this case, it isn’t. If anything, it’s an understatement.)

We are fucked. The political dog and pony show is out of control, our economy is in the hands of people who really don’t care what happens to 99% of us as long as they benefit, and it isn’t getting better. It’s bread and circuses, and we are running out of bread.

I have yet to hear a single person suggest anything that I think would reverse this trend. Not the Tea Party. Not the Obama followers. Not the blue-collar Wal-Mart patrons, who do most of the real labor in this country and receive nothing but scorn for it. Not the socialist hippie-artists, or the pseudo-intellectuals who’ve never done a useful day of real work in their lives. Certainly not the politicians, regardless of their political affiliation.

Not even the libertarians.

I look into the future, and I see darkness.

There are a lot of reasons I am glad that I don’t have children. This is one of them.

A brave soul by the name of Todd Vierling has posted a compelling opinion piece explaining why, in his words,

… those of you who think that using real names will make people more open and social are horrifyingly deluded. Your idealistic vision of “real” interaction through real names isn’t just nonsense; it’s making online socialization more dangerous for everyone by putting them at risk of real-world prejudicial action.

(from Why the Google Profiles (or any) “Real Name” Policy is Important to Me , duh.org)

It’s worth reading. I suggest that you do.

More fun and educational links are at Google strikes out again on social networking.

If you have been paying attention, you know that I planned to delete my Google+ account today unless they reconsidered their so-called “real name” policy, which endangers and disenfranchises users. The day has come. They had plenty of time to eliminate this policy. Time is up. I use my so-called “real name”, but I will not use a service with such contempt for the safety and privacy of its users. I urge you to avoid Google+.

Google doesn’t care whether linking your real name — what some people call your “wallet name” because it’s on all the plastic in your wallet — to your online comments might get you sacked from your job, outed as the only gay in the socially conservative village or your door kicked in by the police.

It really, really doesn’t care. [...]

Google chair Eric Schmidt said it himself during an interview in Edinburgh with Andy Carvin from US National Public Radio.

(from Google+ is a goddam Trojan horse, Crikey)

It’s a real shame, because aside from that policy, I think Google+ is awesome. Ah, well.

This and other fun Google+ related links at Google strikes out again on social networking.

P.S. I am also removing the “+1″ links from my blog. Screw you, Google.

“Mr. Schmidt, how do you justify putting people’s lives in danger and discriminating against people who need to, or simply wish to, preserve some privacy online?”

“The Perfect Order is coming, and you will either be among the elite, or you will be among the common people whose lives are numbered and traded like so many Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Google will not be a Yu-Gi-Oh card! As for the rabble you mention… eh. Their cards have no value, anyway. We can make more money without them than with them.”

I’m at the Edinburgh Intl TV Festival and just got to ask a question to Google CEO Eric Schmidt regarding real names on G+. I asked him how Google justifies the policy given that real identities could put people at risk?

He replied by saying that G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they’re going to build future products that leverage that information.

Regarding people who are concerned about their safety, he said G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it. It’s obvious for people at risk if they use their real names, they shouldn’t use G+. Regarding countries like Iran and Syria, people there have no expectation of privacy anyway due to their government’s own policies, which implies there’s no point of even trying to have a service that allows pseudonyms.

He also said the internet would be better if we knew you were a real person rather than a dog or a fake person. Some people are just evil and we should be able to ID them and rank them downward.

(from Andy Carvin, on Google+)

It looks like I am on track to delete my Google+ account at the end of the month. Bonnie Nadri sums up my feelings about this whole thing:

Nice going, Google; in a scant month you’ve turned me from one of your biggest and most vociferously ardent fans into someone who would rather be app-less and out the money I spent in your Android Market than ever as much as think about doing business with you again[...]

(from Google: Thanks… for nothing.)

I am not quite to that point yet, but it’s coming.

“Identity” is not a scalar quantity. Google is attempting to force it to be so. The attempt is doomed, because it’s impossible, but in the meantime, Google is impairing the quality of its service and eroding the good will the company has accrued in the past decade.

In case you weren’t already tired of hearing about this (heh… heheh), here is an opinion from a scientist blogger (or perhaps a blogging scientist) on the value of pseudonyms.

Our new Scienceblogs overlords sure have great timing with their new pseudonymous blogging rules. For those who haven’t run across that yet, National Geographic has decided to eliminate pseudonyms and force everyone with a blog remaining here (which is already dwindling) to blog under their real names. Meanwhile, out here in the real world, there’s a new unfortunate case study (short version: “EpiGate”) showing how blogging under one’s real name can lead to serious threats and potential loss of employment, among other things.

(from On the value of pseudonyms, Scienceblogs)

Mothers (who may or may not also be scientists) also have an opinion on the subject.

Those who have the knee-jerk response of “Well, anyone who doesn’t want to use their real name has got something to hide or is just out to cause trouble” are, at best, cosmically misinformed. The notion that if “real names” (a term which, by the way, is nearly impossible to define – go ahead, give it a try) are good enough for the wealthy geeks at Google it should be good enough for anyone just reeks of massive privilege. (Frankly, the way Google’s been implementing their ‘policy’ also reeks of colonialism – if you’ve got a nice, comfortable looking ‘wasponym‘ as your name at G+, you’re probably fine, it seems, at least based on what people have been documenting about their clownish banning and reinstatement behavior so far.) I’ve been reading, thinking, and writing about identity and privacy stuff for more than a decade, and the more I learn, the more I come to agree with jwz, who said:

the other night I had dinner with a friend which turned into an hour long argument over it, because he thought that forcing everyone to use their real names was just fine. This is someone I’ve known for decades, so to say that I was shocked and horrified by his attitude is an understatement. It was as if my friend had suddenly started beginning sentences with, “I’m not a racist, but…”

(from Quick Thoughts on Parents and Pseudonymity, CurrentMom)

Meanwhile, Information Week gives us 5 reasons Google+’s name policy fails, TechEye offers concrete suggestions on How to stop Facebook and Google trampling on your privacy rights, and over on ZDNet, Violet Blue (who has been banned and reinstated by Google+ for using her “real” name at least twice now) declares, “Google Plus: too much unnecessary drama“. These and more new links at Google strikes out again on social networking.

Google has been, in many ways, an admirable organization that has done a lot of good but to call its real names policy shortsighted would be kind. By demanding “real” names they can’t reliably determine what are real, they’ve inconvenienced a lot of people and excluded all of those who, for example, live under politically repressive regimes or who might for social reasons wish to stay anonymous.

Nyms matter enormously and an online world without nyms, where everyone can be easily tracked, completely measured, tidily pigeonholed, and endlessly manipulated, will become much less free and much less valuable.

(from No nyms equals evil, Computerworld)

Well, I have found out why the Google+ name fiasco hasn’t been resolved yet: because it’s been imposed at the behest of the Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. Herr Schmidt (oh yes, I went there) believes that everyone should be tracked online, all the time. So much for “don’t be evil”.

Remember April 2009, when Google refused to require YouTube users to register their government-sanctioned names at the demand of South Korea, because Google said (correctly) that it was an unacceptable a priori restriction on freedom of expression? I do. A pity that Google seems to have forgotten it.

“We have a bias in favor of people’s right to free expression in everything we do. We are driven by a belief that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual. We believe that it is important for free expression that people have the right to remain anonymous if they choose.” — Rachel Whetstone, Google Vice President of Global Communications & Public Affairs, April 2009

Ah, the good old days…

This is a quick and dirty attempt at an avatar to use in protest of the Google+ “government names only” policy. The image to the right links to the full-size image. The image below is the avatar-sized image. I wanted to put the word “PRIVACY” in there somewhere, but it’d be too small to read in the avatar version. Feel free to share, critique, whatever.

The farce that is the Google “government name only” policy continues.

On the one hand, Google continues to maintain its sad devotion to this unenforceable policy, which will serve only to doom Google+ as yet another of their failed experiments in social media (if it hasn’t done so already).

Thursday night, Google’s Saurabh Sharma announced the first significant change in the enforcement policy: a four-day grace period between notice of a violation and suspension, during which users can change their profiles to align them with the policy.

(from Google+ Punts on Kafkaesque Name Policy, Wired)

Could this possible be the beginning of a realization that the “government names only” policy is, aside from any social or privacy concerns, absurdly impractical (which has been my primary objection to this foolish policy all along)?

The biggest problem with Google’s identity policy has always been that’s it’s essentially unenforceable. You can’t police millions of users with algorithms looking for nonstandard characters in names or reviewing user-flagged profiles with enough sensitivity to handle edge cases without devoting an absurd number of employee hours to review every violation.

[...]

This farce has to end eventually.

(from Google+ Punts on Kafkaesque Name Policy, Wired)

We can but hope.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security is set to report to ruling party lawmakers about comprehensive measures to protect personal information online, including abolishing the “real-name” registration system they implemented in 2007. That would be the same system that Google refused to implement in 2009, citing it (quite correctly) as an affront to freedom of expression.

Google yesterday decided it would suspend the ability for its Korean users to upload any videos, or post any kind of commentary whatsoever alongside videos. The changes were announced last Thursday on the YouTube Korea blog.

Also that day, the company’s VP for global communications, Rachel Whetstone, posted a lengthy explanation

[...]

“We have a bias in favor of people’s right to free expression in everything we do. We are driven by a belief that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual. We believe that it is important for free expression that people have the right to remain anonymous if they choose.”

[...]

“We concluded in the end that it is impossible to provide benefits to internet users while observing this country’s law because the law does not fall in line with Google’s principles.”

(from Google refuses South Korean government’s real-name system, The Hankyoreh)

Meanwhile, I will continue to add links to my original blog post on this topic, Google strikes out again on social networking.

Google keeps trying to get it right when it comes to social networking. Buzz. Wave. Now Google+. And they came so close, so very close this time.

And then whizzed it right down their legs. I haven’t deleted my Google+ account yet, but I won’t be posting anything there any more (other than to press for correction of the “government names only” policy), and I won’t be encouraging my friends and family to use Google+.

This is distressing, and inexplicable. How can Google have gone so utterly, utterly wrong with this. Google appears to be committed to this anti-social, anti-privacy, anti-user policy. I had been inviting friends and family to Google+ and encouraging them to migrate there from Facebook. I won’t be doing that anymore. However, I’m not going back to Facebook. So now what? Just go back to posting exclusively here on my blog, and to hell with these “social networks”? Maybe.

So disappointed, Google. So very disappointed.

Update (2011-08-31): I gave Google plenty of time, but enough is enough.

Update (2011-10-20): Vic Gundotra (not his real name) says that support for pseudonyms on Google+ is coming “in the future”. “In the future”? Why “in the future”? It’s a bad policy. It’s always been a bad policy. It can be changed with a MEMO. So why hasn’t it already been changed?

Update (2012-01-23): Six months later, and Google is still blisteringly clueless.

And now, some fun references (more recent ones are at the top; more interesting ones are bold):

• Google+ Name Policy Leaves Users Unsatisfied
• Google+ new name policy: Too little, too late
• Handle This: Google+ Finally Allows Pseudonyms (no, not really)
• Fake Names Better on Comments: Study
• Why Google is picky about profile pictures
• Occupy the Net!
• ‘Nymwars’ debate over online identity explodes
• Rushdie Runs Afoul of Web’s Real-Name Police
• ‘Nym wars, part 1/6
• Google moves Reader sharing to Plus, despite complaints
• Debating human rights in the IT industry
• Privacy a Concern as Google Links Plus With Its Other Sites
• Google+ pseudonym support is coming soon
• Google+ Chief: Co. In ‘Enviable Position’
• 4Chan’s Chris Poole Says Facebook and Google Get Identity Wrong
• Google’s Management Doesn’t Use Google+ So Why Should You?
• It’s official: Google+ will be connected to everything
• On Newspapers, Public Discourse, and the Right to Remain Anonymous
• Who Are You, Really? Activists Fight For Pseudonyms
• Google+: What’s in a name?
• Google+’s Real-Name Policy: Identity vs. Anonymity
• Google+: Why the Real Name Policy Is Creating a Very Boring Social Network
• I don’t want a fucking “identity service” that pretends to be a social network.
• Google Profiles Pseudonymity Debate Coverage : Articles
• The Netizen Report: Inaugural Edition
• Pseudonymity: Five Reasons the New Scienceblogs/NG Policy is Misguided
• How much has Facebook just damaged Google Plus?
• Minus the hype, what’s left for Google+?
• Google+, Real Names, and Groklaw’s Pamela Jones
• On Pseudonyms: Transparency And Free Expression Are Not Mutually Exclusive
• Twitter Doesn’t Give a Damn Who You Are
• Google’s strategic mistakes
• Why the Google Profiles (or any) “Real Name” Policy is Important to Me
• Social Networks Urge Users to Use Real Names
• Web Emperor Google
• Give social media giants your real name or say goodbye to your friends
• The death of anonymity online
• Are Real Names On Google+ For Truth Or Profit?
• Google’s “real name policy” — or, why you are the product
• Google Confirms It Aims to Own Your Online ID
• Real Names: Google+, Government & The Identity Ecosystem
• Google+ is a goddam Trojan horse
• Google users in Iran targeted in SSL spoof
• If Google is a combatant in the Identity Wars, who is the enemy?
• Google Plus forces us to discuss identity
• Watch Google Describe How It Can Exploit Your Name
• Death Threats and Hate Crimes, Attacks On Women Bloggers Escalating
• Google’s building products based on Google+’s ‘real names’ policy
• Google’s real names a real disaster
• Eric Schmidt: If You Don’t Want To Use Your Real Name, Don’t Use Google+
• Internet anonymity suffering scrutiny courtesy of the London riots
• Google: Thanks… for nothing.
• A Firsthand Examination of the Google+ Profile Reporting Process
• Google+ Naming Policy Causes Social Butterflies
• Google+ real name clampdown ignores own grace period
• Little Google Boxes (protest song)
• Google Plus: Too Much Unnecessary Drama
• How to stop Facebook and Google trampling on your privacy rights
• 5 Reasons Google+’s Name Policy Fails
• Quick Thoughts on Parents and Pseudonymity
• On the value of pseudonyms
• No nyms equals evil
• Controversy surrounds Google’s “No Pseudonym” policy
• ScoopIt: plusgate
• Google+’s New “Verified Profiles” Feature: Redundant?
• The issue Google+ cannot solve: forcing common names
• Google+ bans real name under ‘Real Names’ policy
• Does Google+’s ‘real names only’ policy make sense?
• To Google, we are data fodder, and I am an unperson
• Google, Privacy and the New Explosion of Data
• Google Quietly Changes Its Policy On Letting Advertisers Place Ads On Your Name
• South Korea’s “real names” debacle and the virtues of online anonymity
• Still Goodbye, Google+
• Google+ Real Name Policy vs. Users; The Battle Continues
• Opinion: Google+ name policy asks a lot of us
• Google’s Real Names Policy is Evil
• S Korea plans to scrap online real-name system
• Google+ Punts on Kafkaesque Name Policy
• Google Scales Back YouTube Korea
• Google+ pseudonym grace period misses the mark
• Google Plus should lighten up on its ‘no pseudonym’ policy
• Google’s gormless ‘no pseudonym’ policy
• Google Plus, Pseudonyms & Activists
• My Name Is Me