Woman is righteous pissed off

[drwex]

The funny part is that I wasn't really paying a lot of attention to the 'nymity debacle on Google+ prior to this. I chose to make a statement of support for friends because they cared and because I support my friends. And now I'm up to my nostrils in it. So, let me give you words of wisdom from one of the better thinkers on the topic, danah boyd:

“Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power

The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. “Real names” policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.

[A]long comes Google Plus, thinking that it can just dictate a “real names” policy. Only, they made a huge mistake. They allowed the tech crowd to join within 48 hours of launching. The thing about the tech crowd is that it has a long history of nicks and handles and pseudonyms. And this crowd got to define the early social norms of the site [...] This was not a recipe for “real name” norm setting. Quite the opposite. Worse for Google… Tech folks are VERY happy to speak LOUDLY when they’re pissed off. So while countless black and Latino folks have been using nicks all over Facebook (just like they did on MySpace btw), they never loudly challenged Facebook’s policy. There was more of a “live and let live” approach to this. Not so lucky for Google and its name-bending community. Folks are now PISSED OFF. (emphasis in the original)

I think I'll also go write something for My Name Is Me.