~ ITEM: Wiki– Facebook real-name policy controversy
~ ITEM: Shame on Facebook: How Zuckerberg’s Confusing “Real Names” Policy Hurts More Than It Helps
~ ITEM: Help, I’m Trapped in Facebook’s Absurd Pseudonym Purgatory
~ ITEM: Facebook reignites real-name controversy after suspending Native American author’s account
~ ITEM: 10 Reasons To Delete Your Facebook Account
~ ITEM: Facebook Is Evil & It Will Consume Your Soul
~ ITEM: Why Facebook Is Evil, According To Mindblowing New Series Mr. Robot
~ ITEM: 5 Evil Ways Google and Facebook Are Using Their Insane Power
~ I JUST GOTTA SAY— Big Brother is a bloody big bother.
The pseudonym ‘Binky The WebElf‘ has existed since about 1996, and is the name I’m known by in Anglican, Catholic, Twitter, FaceBook, and blogging circles. It originally came from silly names I liked to use in video games, and was ‘Binky The Pirate’ for a while in the original Sid Meier ‘Pirates!’.
I knew (and was later proven right) that pseudonymity in the vicious church wars would protect my wife & kids from my getting fired or sent to The Anglican Parish Of Outer Sable Island, 3rd sandbank from the right. Or, some Canadian Jihadi might drop by for a little off the top, because of the many and various things I’ve said about Islam.
Binky is my web-name. If I went by the boring non-elf name, people would not recognize it, and why should they?
That’s part of the point. The issues I bring up are the thing I’d like you to ponder; the fine bloggers and authors and commentators who apply real wisdom to our current dangers and opportunities. Me? I’m prideful and self-important enough, and don’t need my face or name plastered on everything for whatever alleged worth that might have. Look at the STUFF, not at the elf.
Apparently, someone got mad at me recently, and twice over the past month or so reported my name as a “fake name” to FaceBook. DING! Word from FaceBorg: “Please give us your actual name, and cough up a passport, driver’s license, or other real ID to prove it. You know, because celebrities.”
This ‘feature’ has been popping up since 2012-ish, but has gone viral in 2015, because FaceBook– sometime friend and ally of fascists and radicals and terrorists and silencers and big corporate government– is enforcing their arbitary rules. Because, you know, online corporations don’t have enough information about all of us. Coming next: FaceBook digital colonoscopy & DNA+blood samples?
In one sense, no big deal– though demands that members of the public report various forms of personal and private ID to a faceless corporation is very scary. But what about other people, to whom pseudonymous communication via Facebook is a matter of life & death? Someone being stalked or death-threatened? A human rights worker or dissident in a dangerous country? A Christian pastor in a Muslim land? Someone who doesn’t want their identity stolen, with all the joy & fun of unravelling that rat’s nest? You can fill in the blanks.
However, I’m also an ill guy living at home, alone much of the time, and FaceBook– despite all the privacy and other issues– is a major part of my chance to reach out, hear back, counsel, preach, build a wide variety of friendships around the world, communicate on matters I consider important or topical or timely. Minus FaceBook, I will be even more lonely, alone, and prone to the Black Dog, and that really sucks. Thanks, Zuckerberg, you heinous power-mad twerp.
So, until FaceBook follows Google’s eminently sensible example of not minding our personal business even more, I guess The Binks is officially off The FaceBook for now*. Feel free to comment below.
Sad elf. ~
binks-dot-webelf-at-gmail-dot-com
* If this is all the result of some malicious FB snitching (pretty sure it is, but the tattle-tales have their identity protected, so mind your ding-danged business), I forgive you, but you really pissed me and my friends off. God knows your name, and he will not forget.
