> I've always just used my real name online - so instead of having an email address like sexy_asian_chick88@hotmail.com, I just used my name. It's a little less embarrassing when you have to give it to people, and I sort of got over those sorts of email addresses in grade 5.

You can't see the value of bob@corp.example.com and barbera@mytransself.example.com for someone to blog about the widgets their company makes and also about the best places to buy clothes?

> sure, if I was living under a oppressive regime, and had to get data out

People are beaten every day in the US for being gay or trans or whatever. Sometimes murdered. Often discriminated against. While I feel Brandon Eich's opposition to gay marriage is abhorrent I kind of feel sorry for him being kick out of a job for it.

> And really, what am I writing online that is so private and secretive that I need to firewall it from my actual identity? I wouldn't be having such discussions on a public forum online - I'd do it offline.

There are so many reasons people might want to talk about something in a public forum but not want to tie it to their identity. At least, they may start wanting to keep it private before they reveal their identity. Why deny them that choice? But here's a list:-

- battered women

- battered men

- victims of sexual abuse

- members of the glbt community, especially if they're preparing to disclose to family members etc.

- people with "embarrassing" diseases.

- people who face stigma - being religious or not religious in a not religious or religious area; having severe and enduring mental health problems, etc.

This is just a partial list! There are very many more!

> And quite frankly, considering the awful quality if YouTube comments, I'd applaud any attempts to make people even slightly accountable for the awful and often hateful c*ap they write on YouTube comments.

Have you read comments under newspaper articles recently? Real names, horrible comments.

Improving comment quality is important. So far it seems that you need to set expectations and have some kind of moderation. This can work even with anonymity. See, for example, early /R9K/ (at least when they had the robot image) for an example of not terrible commenting without real names. But some people really strongly prefer real names - http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/UseRealNames

However, this appears orthogonal to the issue of whether YouTube (a public forum) requires posters to use their actual name, and not a fake name.

I mean, think about it - is a public forum the sort of place that you would want to be posting private content you don't want linked to you?

If I was an oppressed person, and wanted to talk to somebody - friends, family, counsellor - there are other mediums available. I mean, gosh, I could meet up in person? Or I could pick up a telephone? (Assuming my enemies weren't the NSA.) I could write them a letter? I could send them an encrypted email. The list goes on.

What benefit do I possibly gain from publicly outing myself on a public forum, fake name or not? Why not use a private forum?

If I was an oppressed person, and I wanted to vent in my own community - there are private gated ways I could do this. There are real life meetups. We could meet in a coffee shop. There are private discussion forums, where you control the servers. There are Usenet groups etc.

I really don't get people's obsession with posting everything publicly by default. It's like people posting every time they do a poo on their Twitter feed - why?

Or let's look at one of your examples - people with embarrassing diseases. Is this where people with symptoms refuse to see a doctor, but would rather post on a online forum, so that anybody can chime in with their opinion? Have you seen some of the idiocy that's spouted in these forums? shakes head. Dude, go see your doctor, seriously. Firstly, it's guaranteed to be confidential, and secondly, this is somebody you're paying for their professional opinion, as opposed to some guy in their mum's basement having watched too many episodes of House M.D., and posting under the alias Dr_John_Hopkin_MD.

Or say you were filing a victim's report. The police aren't exactly going to say to you - oh, you need to file a police report? Gosh, you should do it in a...YouTube comment! You will go into a police station, and fill in a paper report.

The world would be a better place if people learnt to live a little less online, and didn't default to public-view on everything.

....

I don't see how this is related

If it's public, it's public. Eventually, it will probably be linked back to you.

If they want to talk among their communiti

So, "subversive", against the status quo ideas, should only be limited to my neighbor? So that there is not enough exposure and they just die out? How cute.

Nice, loaded example. Strange you didn't use "I'm a naive idiot" as an email example, to "explain" why using your real name would be better. ..And, btw: Sexy asian chick? Pics or it didn't happen.

"And really, what am I writing online that is so private and secretive that I need to firewall it from my actual identity?"

You may be boring, unimaginative, and a herd follower, but that doesn't mean everybody else is.

Yes, I am boring - I'm not afraid to admit it.

I am just another of the 6 billion or so souls floating in this rock in space. I don't think of myself as a special snowflake, or as some secret government operative, or somebody who's smarter than all the plebs around me. And I sleep perfectly fine knowing that =). You use the word herd follower as if it's some kind of grave insult?

I'm not an anarchist, nor am I V from V for Vendetta. Ergo, my argument, I don't really have any issues with people seeing what I post online, since most of it's just banal rubbish. You're not going to get any national secrets from reading all of my online postings.

I have friends who are paranoid with security/privacy - and I respect them for that, I just don't understand it. I'm more likely to be the target of an online spammer or phishing attack, than a government agent trying to see if I am against the Party.

However, _if_ I were an anarchist, do you really think I'd be posting my secret plans to overthrow the US government on a YouTube comment?

This is precisely my point, everybody seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill. Who cares if Google makes you actually identify yourself when you comment on the 50 billionth cat video.