Why the brevity of title, one might ask? Well, it’s my first and continuing response to this:

Should Faking a Name on Facebook Be a Felony?
http://on.wsj.com/p5BaQk

Mind you, I am plenty aware that this sort of crap swirls around in debate. There are always the spurious and false claims that it’ll make people sit up and fly right… and I don’t buy it for a second. Heck, I’ll quote myself from a Facebook discussion:

“The argument I saw on telly this morning is that it would make it easier to track trolls. I argue that, as a former forum moderator, it’s not that hard to take said IP address and what information they do provide and put together enough information to file cases with their local police agencies… not that I could protect people as such at one place; my hands were tied by people refusing to process that there were actual death threats afoot. On the other hand, being able to choose a level of anonymity helps protect the vulnerable… like me! *chuckles* My anxiety problems mean that people ‘joking’ that they’re going to hire someone to kill me or beat me and my family up (has happened – once again, hands were tied and I got demonized for wanting to stop that crap)… well.”

“Suffices to say, I passionately believe people have a right to anonymity, and should temper that with honesty and the golden rule. My public blog, for example – I don’t name names and avoid naming specific places, but everything that goes into it otherwise is pretty damned honest. The fact that I don’t have to broadcast my legal name and address means that I’m fairly safe from idiot trolls – I can report them to their ISPs or the cops if they did want to start shit, or otherwise ignore them…”

The general consensus amongst my friends are in a similar vein. One argues that it doesn’t pass the brick and mortar rule – shouldn’t responsibility for users fall under the site’s remit? Another pointed out (most fairly, in my opinion) that it’s just another thin government excuse to track people from a government with a TERRIBLE track record of respect for the privacy of its citizens (in spite of laws stating that it must behave otherwise). All in all, the general consensus is that there ARE enough laws and rules to deal with the vast majority of issues without forcing a name on everyone, so… Anyways, trolls gonna troll whether or not you make them use their real name – I’ve seen it plenty enough! If you don’t feed them, they will generally bug off, so y’know… don’t give them the attention they want?

Anyways, I hope that you nice, non-trolly folks have a great weekend, and all of that. 🙂