Scarcely a day goes by without someone warning us about the evils of social networking.

Web-users seem eager to sanctimoniously parade their credentials when it comes to being oh-so-indignant about social networks and privacy. "I never use Facebook!" they cry. "It's all a big corporation trading on our names!".

Sure it is. It's also a convenient way to keep in touch with friends as well as share links and photographs.

However, I must admit, two recent events have given me pause.

The first were reports that Facebook is in negotiations with the Chinese government regarding access to the lucrative Chinese market. Such an endeavour would undoubtedly require Facebook to hand over large quantities of information to the Chinese government and I'd certainly quit Facebook before allowing myself to be even tangentially involved in such a transaction.

The second is the one I'd like to bring up today. I've argued elsewhere on these threads that anonymity is often essential, now more so than ever.

Google's new social networking system demands that people use their real names. One reason why I liked Facebook was that people could sign up with any name they damn well pleased.

When I attempted to use some Chinese social networking sites they demanded I use my real name - in Chinese. I was somewhat annoyed because the characters I use to represent my name aren't typically used for names in China so I was stuck. Besides, it's none of their business. I elected not to sign up.

Google's real-name requirement would appear to be the first step in an identity-monetizing process unlike anything we've ever seen before. This article has more information:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/08/30/google-is-a-goddam-trojan-horse/

What say you all? Is it reasonable for social networking sites to demand our real names? Are we corporate stooges for signing up? Is that a bad thing?

These sites are pure evil and I have nothing to do with them and never will. However, how do I prevent other from mentioning myself, or posting material in relation to myself on these sites?

If idiots want to bare their dirty laundry to the whole world and sell their ass to corporation Google, that's their prerogative, but when they bring in others that have not given consent, where does that leave us? This is what annoys me the most about these sites! Not that I have something to hide, but because I put great value in my private life and I choose who I will allow to profit from my person and my activities and despise any one who feels they have the right to take that from me without my consent. I feel a lawsuit coming on!

I wonder how many realise that once they have your details, they have them for good whether you like it or not. You don't have to give it to them yourself, others can do it for you!

Sorry to answer your question with many questions, but I hope my questions answer your question :)

Yes....very interesting. I cant believe some of you still think you have privacy in this todays mans/woman's world. Your telling me, you didn't see the Google monster plus coming?....To control with this many people/masses, intel was and is the key points in the first places........way back, to where time was first recorded, and Jane Goodall could tell the rest, and back to Africa ( 5 million years, and some ). How do you think they know all whats happened with the UK.."I wont get caught"...lol...makes you wonder what grey matter their using?!.....They know all, in the ruling of worlds?.... and I would do the same.

Anyway, if you have a PC, your already in the matrix, phone etc.....I put many types of bait out..or confusions of,..just to see 'who's who' in the global zoo.:)...but if you have nothing to hide....then your with the system, and not against it.

Just have a look at the UK with CCTV.....welcome:)...its not that hard to do the right thing.....or is it?....:) I mean, we are human after all.

All the best.

Castus

its funny how we thing there is such a thing like web annonimity
our servers tag each letter we type..our computer id's us

just to get internet acces
i had to show id..and reply lots of questions
the computer stores every web site we visit..knows our full and complete details

of course this is easy accesable to many
and then gets cross referanced..and stored 'for ever'

we are going to go digetal
so soon govt will know egsactly our in puts as well as our output
to wit wether we watched attentivly all or part of every show
read all or part of every article[ya think that camera/microphone.. on your computer only works when you chose]...lol

your mobile phone tracks your every movement
records your every uttterance..even snaps off a shot every time it comes out of your pocket

heck anyone who thinks they got a secret
dont realise there are no secrets

nothing knowable that is not known
this is the 'jobs ready' stuff the bailout paid for
this is the stuff we told govt to do..to ALL of us after 911

there are no secrets
and really there never were
they are simply giving us enough rope

just like spirit alone used to know..now those who say
*they need to know..can know..all they think they need

and more
in real time
and still criminals are allowed to do their crime
cause they now..got licence to do it..and can be called over to the other side whenever the fat controler says jump

@TurnRightThenLeft: Is it reasonable for social networking sites to demand our real names?

They can demand it all they like, but assuming to choose a reasonable sounding alias the odds are they will only find out if your friends dob you in.

@TurnRightThenLeft: Are we corporate stooges for signing up?

The question betrays you as being of a certain age. You don't have much privacy as a youth - between your mother, your school and your social group there isn't much unknown, so its not surprising youth don't see the lack of privacy on these services as a great loss. We older adults have become accustomed to having control over who knows what, so perhaps that is why we take a dimmer view.

I have been watching my now adult kids behaviour, wondering if they would be less revealing in their public persona as they got older. The posts have got fewer as they develop busy adult lives, but so far we still learn more more about they are doing from their public posts then we do when we chat over dinner. I suspect that isn't going to change, which means the world has changed, forever.

@TurnRightThenLeft: Is that a bad thing?

The usual situation in a small country town is you know them, their kids, their work, who they've slept with, their interests, their politics, their education, what jobs they had and why they lost them - and probably what they like for breakfast. Perversely in the big city we have become accustomed to a much greater amount of privacy - when we meet someone we usually know almost nothing about them. These social web sites mean as soon as a city person is invited as a facebook friend, they can learn as much about their acquaintances as the country cousins learnt from a lifetime of gossip.

(cont'd...)

(...cont'd)

The point being, this the anonymity city gives us is a relatively new thing, and we many examples of very functional civil societies that survive without it. So I don't see a society where everybody looses privacy as disaster. In fact it is probably beneficial - when everybody knows everything, we keep each other honest.

What does worry me is the idea that it doesn't happen equally. In other words, a situation develops where there are some people who get to know far more about me then I know about them. That is the one difference between the small village and the global village. In the small village everybody has access to the gossip network. In the global village great globs of my private information are accumulating on computers outside of my control - and indeed outside of my countries control. Facebook and Google+ are facilitating this. Google perhaps more so, because it is a rare email that doesn't manage to get itself archived on Google's servers now.

So far in western countries this concentration of information has been pretty benign, doing little more than serving up more interesting ads. Countries like China, where the people in power use it to pursue their political enemies show us that is more an artefact of our political systems. One thing I would like to see is more transparency in the grossest invaders of our privacy - our law enforcement agencies. A law that mandates them (or indeed anyone) publishing all of their accesses to our private information so we can see what they are getting up to would be a vast improvement, keeping us from straying too far down the China path. They will whinge and whine such disclosure would hamper their investigations - so do it after the investigation has closed, or after a couple of years. We are after all just demanding the same access to their operations that they have to our private lives, and I happen to think transparency is one of the best disinfectants.