Should You Use Your Real Name On The Internet?

Fake names….

Paisley Beebe TV Show Host in Second Life

There’s a lot of discussion going on at the moment around the issue of using what some people call “Fake” names on the internet, particularly around Google+ which has outlawed them, as has Facebook, although on Facebook you can set up a Fan Page under your “Fake” Name. On Twitter you can call yourself whatever you want, and they don’t seem to have any problem with it.

“Handles” as they are known by experienced online users, is something that goes back to online forums before there was any such thing as social media. It was understood that you could call yourself anything you wanted on a forum or a support network, in fact real names were discouraged to protect you actually…. The reason you might have used a “handle” was your own buisness. It might have been for privacy, so that you could express yourself with more openness, it was rarely so you could participate in bad behaviour and not be traced. If you behaved badly on a forum you would be kicked off….no need for a real name.

Most forums on the internet still ask you to create your own user name, it is really standard practice. On forums you are respected for what you contribute, not your PHD or your real name identity its a level playing field which is just great!

However with the rise of social networks being used not just for support groups or discussion and sharing ideas, but for buisness, a whole bunch of internet community “noobies” have entered the system. People who don’t come from a background of online community experience. They view the use of handles with suspicion, some of us would say they “just don’t get it”

Google+

Google say that their reason for not allowing “Fake” names on their new social network Google+ is that they are in the buisness of identity…they want the real names so that they can mine and track your real life data. This policy has really got up the nose of millions of users of the internet who have been identified by their online handles for years in some case 30 years! Many people are better known by their handles than their real life names!

Second Life

I definitely fit into that category. Although I have used my real life name online with my Jazz Singing persona, I had an online forum “handle” that was a version of my real life name which dates back to 1995, My “Fake” name of Paisley Beebe, which was created for Second Life in 2006, is by far the better known name on the internet. Just do a search…Because I’ve been active in online communities for a long time, choosing a handle for Second Life was no big deal.