We've written previously about Facebook and the implicit fight against everything secret and anonymous that undergirds its every move. Recently, Randi Zuckerberg, who is Mark's sister and the company's marketing director made the implicit plainly explicit when she told the audience at a panel on online privacy that anonymity on the Web "has to go away."
"I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away,” said Zuckerberg at the panel hosted by Marie Claire yesterday. “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.”
Anonymity on the web resurfaced as the topic du jour after Google+ yanked several profiles that were created under false names. Both Google's social network and Facebook have rules insisting that users on the site go by their real first and last names.
Columnists, including Flickr and Hunch co-founder Caterina Fake have argued that anonymity should be allowed to protect the privacy of individuals in cases where such privacy is of dire importance, as with journalists in oppressive regimes or among victims of abuse. But the social networks and their allies argue that doing away with anonymity is best way to make the Internet a better place. For now, it seems privacy purists are out of luck.
[HuffPo]
