What to Facebook is a 'fake name' may be the expression of your authentic self

“On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Thus reads the caption of a now-infamous cartoon by Peter Steiner in the New Yorker, capturing the zeitgeist of the early internet.

This culture of relative anonymity led to the feeling, for many, that what took place online was somehow separate from reality. Online, you could use any name you wanted. You may have been a suit-wearing investment banker, but online, you could dabble in erotic fiction, or join a community for tattoo enthusiasts.

But slowly, as the social web has become integrated into our daily lives, we’ve begun to use our given names – rather than, say, “hotgirl2286” – to identify ourselves but, until recently, we’ve almost always had a choice.

Today, the online public sphere is dominated by large corporations that have varied rules about how their users identify themselves. Twitter allows handles or usernames, but in some cases requires users to verify new accounts with a mobile phone number, identifying the user to the company but not the public.

Google’s rules vary by platform: YouTube allows pseudonyms, while Google+ encourages – but does not strictly require – users to use their “real name”. Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as Quora and a handful of other sites, require that users sign up with their given name, and in some cases – such as if that name is flagged by another user as fake – require users to submit identification to prove their identity.

Facebook’s policy and procedures have sparked particular ire among certain users. Because the platform makes it easy to report another user for using a “fake name”, some users have taken advantage of that ease to maliciously target users they don’t like.

This appeared to be the case last autumn when a number of drag performers were kicked off Facebook en masse. Sister Roma, a performer and activist who was affected by the reporting, told me in an email:

“All of these communities and cultures [that have experienced malicious reporting] have a history of being suppressed. We’ve all had to fight against homophobia, racism, and prejudice and discrimination. To me it is obvious that people are maliciously pinpointing entire groups of people that they feel are undesirable, morally corrupt, or live lives in opposition to their religious beliefs. They’d like to see us disappear, and unfortunately, as Facebook’s current policy stands, it is happening.”

Facebook, for its part, claims that its policy of requiring “authentic names” makes users more accountable and “helps [the company] root out accounts created for malicious purposes, like harassment, fraud, impersonation and hate speech”, a Facebook representative told me. “We want Facebook to be a place where people can share responsibly, and we work hard to strike the right balance between enabling expression while providing a safe and respectful experience.”

Sister Roma disagrees. “Facebook’s real name policy is encouraging and supporting malicious, targeted, blatant online bullying,” she says. “Millions of people [using names other than their legal ones] are using Facebook in a healthy, genuine and authentic way, communicating honestly and openly with their friends and their community.”

Based on our email exchange, Sister Roma’s views on authenticity don’t seem to differ that much from Facebook’s, rather, it’s the implementation of the policy that is a problem for her and others, like Dana Lone Hill, a Native American blogger who made headlines after her Facebook profile was deactivated (Facebook questioned her name). Hill and Sister Roma are not demanding anonymity, rather, they’re pushing back against a policy that views only legal names as “authentic”.

After years of sticking to its guns, it appears Facebook is ready to recognize this. In an October post, employee Chris Cox admitted: “The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life. For Sister Roma, that’s Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that’s Lil Miss Hot Mess.”

Are legal names – usually the names given to us at birth – truly representative of our authentic selves? Surnames are a fairly modern phenomenon in many societies, required and in some cases even created by governments to keep track of citizens. Legal names allow government to track property ownership, collect taxes, maintain court records, and perform police work, among other things. With the advent of international travel, governments around the world standardized their practice, issuing passports that, in most cases, contain a first name and a surname.

Identifying an individual using their legal name may be standard practice, but does it make sense in all circumstances? Law enforcement or your boss may need your name to identify you, privately, but when you go to a bar or introduce yourself on the first day of work, you are generally free to use a name of your choosing.

For companies, finding a solution that allows users to identify “authentically” when their name doesn’t match what’s on their passport or birth certificate will take time and fresh thinking. Facebook’s current solution – that is, allowing users to submit alternative information rather than legal ID – will help users like Sister Roma, who is a performer and a public presence, but may not make it easier for the average user to prove his or her authenticity.

Mark Snyder is director of communications at the Equality Federation and has thought a lot about this problem while involved in activism to change Facebook’s policy while working at the Transgender Law Center. He sees the value of the company’s current policy, but fears that “the unintended consequences [of the policy] and … variations in enforcement show that a better methodology should be implemented right away”.

He recommends a system that would focus more on harmful behavior than identity, de-emphasizing the ability to flag a user for their name and ensuring that users aren’t merely “going around flagging profile after profile”. He also supports training so that staff can better understand the circumstances around when a user prefers to use a name that doesn’t match their legal identification.

The precise reasons a person might have for using a different name vary greatly, but are often connected by a common theme: vulnerability. As scholar Danah Boyd has written, policies requiring “real names” are “an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people”, people who have very good reasons for using the names they do: they may be survivors of violence, or have a public-facing job that attracts attention to their online profiles.

Or, in the case of many transgender individuals, their legal name may not match their gender identity. Transgender people already face disproportionate levels of violence and other risks. “It breaks my heart to think that young transgender people, especially transgender women of color, would have to face any additional burdens or barriers to being able to be their authentic selves,” says Snyder.

One irony of Facebook’s continued insistence on “real names” is that the social network has often been a leader in user security, recently providing a way for users of the anonymity network Tor to connect directly to the site. This means that such users can obscure their identity from their internet service provider and any surveillance apparatus … right up until they use their name to log in to Facebook.

This incongruity presents an interesting conundrum. As a society, we’ve arrived at a crossroads: identity is increasingly a part of our consciousness, while state surveillance of our communications more invasive than ever. This presents a challenge for online service providers looking to create spaces that are free from harassment and other ills. While “real names” policies are not yet a thing of the past, the changes Facebook is making to accommodate users whose names don’t fit convention may indicate a shift toward new ways of exhibiting our “authentic selves”.