[As
the Internet becomes the place for all kinds of transactions, from buying shoes
to overthrowing despots, an increasingly vital debate is emerging over how
people represent and reveal themselves on the Web sites they visit. One side
envisions a system in which you use a sort of digital passport, bearing your
real name and issued by a company like Facebook, to travel across the Internet.
Another side believes in the right to don different hats — and sometimes masks
— so you can consume and express what you want, without fear of offline
repercussions.]
 |
| The writer Salman Rushdie objected when Facebook tried to use his name as it appeared on his passport, and nowhere else |
SAN FRANCISCO
— The writer Salman Rushdie hit Twitter on Monday morning with a
flurry of exasperated posts. Facebook, he wrote, had deactivated his account,
demanded proof of identity and then turned him into Ahmed Rushdie, which is how
he is identified on his passport. He had never used his first name, Ahmed, he
pointed out; the world knows him as Salman.
Would Facebook, he
scoffed, have turned J. Edgar Hoover into John Hoover?
“Where are you hiding,
Mark?” he demanded of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, in one post. “Come out here and give me back my
name!”
The Twitterverse took up
his cause. Within two hours, Mr. Rushdie gleefully declared victory: “Facebook has buckled! I’m
Salman Rushdie again. I feel SO much better. An identity crisis at my age is no
fun.”
Mr. Rushdie’s
predicament points to one of the trickiest notions about life in the digital
age: Are you who you say you are online? Whose business is it — and why?
As the Internet becomes
the place for all kinds of transactions, from buying shoes to overthrowing
despots, an increasingly vital debate is emerging over how people represent and
reveal themselves on the Web sites they visit. One side envisions a system in
which you use a sort of digital passport, bearing your real name and issued by
a company like Facebook, to travel across the Internet. Another side believes
in the right to don different hats — and sometimes masks — so you can consume
and express what you want, without fear of offline repercussions.
The argument over
pseudonyms — known online as the “nym wars” — goes to the heart of how the
Internet might be organized in the future. Major Internet companies like
Google, Facebook and Twitter have a valuable stake in this debate — and, in
some cases, vastly different corporate philosophies on the issue that signal
their own ambitions.
Facebook insists on what
it calls authentic identity, or real names. And it is becoming a de facto
passport vendor of sorts, allowing its users to sign into seven million other
sites and applications with their Facebook user names and passwords.
Google’s social network,
Google+, which opened up to all comers in September, likewise wants the real
names its users are known by offline, and it has frozen the accounts of some
perceived offenders.
But Google has indicated
more recently that it will eventually allow some use of aliases. Vic Gundotra,
the Google executive responsible for the social network, said at a conference last month that he wanted
to make sure its “atmosphere” remained comfortable even with people using fake
names. “It’s complicated to get this right,” he said.
Twitter, by sharp
contrast, follows a laissez-faire approach, allowing the use of pseudonyms by
WikiLeaks supporters and a prankster using the name @FakeSarahPalin, among many
others. It does consider deceitful impersonation to be grounds for suspension.
The debate over identity
has material consequences. Data that is tied to real people is valuable for
businesses and government authorities alike. Forrester Research recently
estimated that companies spent $2 billion a year for personal data, as Internet
users leave what the company calls “an exponentially growing digital
footprint.”
And then there are the
political consequences. Activists across the Arab world and in Britain have
learned this year that social media sites can be effective in mobilizing uprisings,
but using a real name on those sites can lead authorities right to an
activist’s door.
“The real risk to the
world is if information technology pivots to a completely authentic identity
for everyone,” said Joichi Ito, head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. “In the U.S., maybe you don’t mind. If every kid in
Syria, every time they used the Internet, their identity was visible, they
would be dead.”
Of course, people have
always used pseudonyms. Some, like Mark Twain, are better known by their fake
names. Some use online pseudonyms to protect themselves, like victims of abuse.
Still others use fake names to harass people.
Facebook has
consistently argued for real identity on the grounds that it promotes more
civil conversations.
“Facebook has always
been based on a real-name culture,” said Elliot Schrage, vice president of
public policy at Facebook. “We fundamentally believe this leads to greater
accountability and a safer and more trusted environment for people who use the service.”
Real identity is also
good for Facebook’s business, particularly as it moves into brokering
transactions for things like airline tickets on its site.
Company executives are
aware of the difficulties of policing a site with 800 million active users.
Plenty of people get away with using fanciful names. And enforcing the
real-name policy can present real-life complications. Wael Ghonim, the
celebrated Egyptian blogger, used a fake name to set up a popular anti-Mubarak
Facebook page. That led Facebook to briefly shut its Arabic version in the
middle of the Tahrir Square demonstrations, until a woman in the United States
agreed to take it over.
Twitter, on the other
hand, has vigorously defended the use of pseudonyms, bucking demands most
recently from British government officials who pressed for a real-names policy
in the aftermath of the civil unrest across Britain.
“Other services may be
declaring you have to use your real name because they think they can monetize
that better,” said Twitter’s chief executive, Dick Costolo. “We are more
interested in serving our users first.”
At the same time,
Twitter is vying with Google and Facebook to be something of a passport
authority on the Web. Facebook has the widest reach, offering easy access to
sites that deliver things like instant messaging and news. Spotify and MOG, two
music sites, require new users to log in with their Facebook identities. This
allows those sites to show users what their Facebook friends are listening to.
For consumers, this
approach can be a mixed blessing. It means not having to keep track of
different passwords for different sites. It also means sharing data about what
they are doing online with these emerging “identity intermediaries,” as Chris
Hoofnagle, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, calls
them.
“It’s convenient,” Mr.
Hoofnagle said. “But do you want Facebook and Google to know where you’re
going?”
As for Facebook’s
crackdown on Mr. Rushdie, the company would not explain how it happened but
admitted it was a mistake. “We apologize for the inconvenience this caused
him,” Facebook said in a statement.
Mr. Rushdie, who once
lived incognito because of death threats, has more recently been busy revealing
himself on Twitter. He had to fight for his online name there as well. An
imposter was using the Twitter handle @SalmanRushdie earlier this year, and Mr.
Rushdie had to ask the company for help reclaiming it. Now his page bears
Twitter’s blue “Verified Account” checkmark and quotes Popeye: “I yam what I
yam and that’s all that I yam.”
