Google demands that users of its Google+ social network be identified by their real names. It's a bad policy that's been badly implemented, but is it proof that Google just doesn't get people?
Requiring users to identify themselves to Google is reasonable enough. But having to reveal your identity publicly can cause problems for many people. Sociologist danah boyd has gone as far as calling it an abuse of power.
Google's problems go well beyond the overall policy objective. The names policy is poorly thought out, and is ambiguous. Google demands that people use their common name, "the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you" — but then rejects names, because they're not legal or don't conform to a rather narrow idea of how names work.
Google's implementation has been heavy handed and inconsistent. Originally, a Google Profile that seemed to breach the names policy was simply deleted. Now, they give a generous four days of warning — provided you log-in to see the pop-up. Google doesn't do email, it seems.
Developer Kirrily "Skud" Robert, herself a Google employee until earlier this year, has been documenting the disaster. She tells this week's Patch Monday podcast that she's gone beyond the idea that Google doesn't do customer service or doesn't do social. She reckons they just don't do people.
Robert explains some of the more incompetent-seeming name rejections, and why Facebook's names policy, which on the surface appears even stricter than Google's, has been implemented with little outcry.
Patch Monday also includes my usual look at some of last week's news headlines.
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Running time: 34 minutes
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As someone who helps moderate a busy IM forum I have no problem with heavy handed approaches to cleaning up the net. The spammers/scammers make life difficult for everyone directly or indirectly - right down to kids having to be careful which silly facebook pages they "like" because they enable scammers to access their info.
This reasoning boils down to security theater - "there's something to be afraid of, so we must punish everyone who isn't the problem". That's the "heavy handed" approach Google has been taking and the excuse behind their reasoning.
There are tons of communities online that don't bother with a claim to "real names only, for your security and peace of mine" yet have virtually zero problem with "scammers" and aren't "ruined by anonymous comments". That's because those communities are simply and intelligently constructed and moderated correctly.
The proof is in the pudding. Google's policy has done little to create a positive atmosphere on G+ whenever there's any debate, especially over this topic. The "real names" brigade has been consistently **** ish, intolerant, and insulting towards anyone who argues for freedom of expression. All done under their "real names" and usually RL photograph.