{"id":387,"date":"2011-08-19T19:52:25","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T02:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/?p=387"},"modified":"2013-01-06T21:51:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T05:51:02","slug":"google-doesnt-want-real-names-they-want-wasponyms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/19\/google-doesnt-want-real-names-they-want-wasponyms\/","title":{"rendered":"Google+ Doesn’t Want “Real” Names. They Want WASPonyms."},"content":{"rendered":"

Three pieces of news lately about Google+ make it clear that when Google claims they want you to use your “real” name, it’s a load of hooey. First off, a legally mononymous<\/a> Australian journalist named Stilgherrian was told he couldn’t use that name — his actual, legal name — on Google+. He was not at all pleased, and has written one fairly professional complaint<\/a> and one vitriolic and expletive-soaked rant<\/a> about it (indeed, even the URL<\/em> of the latter post could be considered NSFW).<\/p>\n

Then Microsoft employee M3 Sweatt had his Google+ profile suspended<\/a>. Unlike Stilgherrian, M3’s name is the one his parents gave him when he was born. His name also has the virtue of having a recognizable first name and last name. Nonetheless, Google+ says it doesn’t count.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Internet personality who goes by the (non-legally-recognized) moniker Rainyday Superstar changed her Google+ profile to list her as “Rainy O’Leary”, and told Google very explicitly that this was not her real name<\/strong>. She also set every other field<\/em> in her profile<\/a> to say, “My name is Rainyday Superstar”.<\/p>\n

Of course, Google reinstated<\/em> her Google+ account.<\/a> (She has since deleted it.)<\/p>\n

Taken together, these three events make it very clear that Google doesn’t give a damn if you’re using your “real” name<\/strong>. They just want you to use a “normal-looking” name. Google wants you to use a WASPonym<\/strong>, a name that looks like it comes from middle-class, white-bread, suburban America.<\/p>\n

This is just one of the reasons why I’ve been putting the “real” in “‘real’ names policy” in quotes all this time. There’s also the question of what makes a name “real” at all, but it seems pretty clear that by any sane standard, M3 Sweatt’s name qualifies. It’s the name his parents gave him at birth, and<\/em> one that he feels a personal attachment to.<\/p>\n

But it’s not a WASPonym, so Google says that if M3 wants to keep using G+, he’ll have to change his handle to a name that’s not<\/em> his real name<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It’s not a “real” names policy at all. It’s a WASPonym policy.<\/p>\n

I have no idea why they’re insisting on it, but it will do absolutely nothing<\/strong> to hold people accountable for their words or actions, or to stop spam, or any of the other things Google keeps claiming. All those excuses are a lie and a ruse.<\/p>\n

There is no longer any sense in calling this policy “a ‘real’ names policy”; continuing to use that terms merely aids Google’s attempts to confuse the issue. It’s a WASPonym policy, and I will call it that from now on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three pieces of news lately about Google+ make it clear that when Google claims they want you to use your “real” name, it’s a load of hooey. First off, a legally mononymous Australian journalist named Stilgherrian was told he couldn’t use that name — his actual, legal name — on Google+. He was not at all pleased, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,97,119,39,20,120,78,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":513,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}