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Monday, May 11, 2009

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Loki Eliot

there is an Sl version of face book, simple but effective http://www.secondlifenetwork.com/

Doubledown Tandino

A friend of mine, also SL last name Sideways was also deleted from Facebook recently. I wonder if the FB staff goes through SL last names, and can remove them in one swoop.

It's a shame that Facebook is doing this.. and doing it in this way. Just a swift deletion without any recourse.

However... I suggest that if you have a fear your FB page may be deleted, change your main page to your real info, and then set up a fan page for your avatar. You can function and communicate with Facebook via your own avatar's fan page also.

Arwyn Quandry

This is really sad. Facebook is going to miss some revenue by turning away avatars - SL is a pretty big, varied user group with a lot of profit potential. I find it disappointing that they can only think in black and white terms of "real" and "not real", without realizing that there's a big wonderful grey area of fantasy and reality, where people are actually more likely to be themselves than when they are the person behind the keyboard.

Valentina Kendal

We have lots of social networking avenues to interact as AVs. I think we should leave Facebook for the flesh and blood.

Alja

The SL user base is relatively small compared to the number of users that like Facebook *precisely* because it expects people to use their real names. That's also what sets it apart from MySpace and other similar sites where using nicknames and avatar names isn't against the ToS, so I honestly don't see a FB policy change regarding name requirements coming up in the near future. Whether you like it or not, using your avatar name on FB can get your account banned at any time.

Arcadia Codesmith

Facebook...facebook...isn't that the teeny-bopper vanity site that used to be so hot?

Tateru Nino

This is why I don't ever log in to FB anymore. Why keep up the profile if it might vanish at any moment.

Incidentally, why do many actors, authors, rappers and musicians get to use an alias on Facebook and we don't? That hardly seems fair.

soror nishi

I reported the same in February with Wizard. (http://sorornishi.blogspot.com/2009/02/fake-pride.html) and she's started a group called Fake Pride.

Facebooks loss is KoinUps gain..... stupid.

Its just data-mining anyway...

Tateru Nino

The problem with the SL social networks is that they lack the connections with non SL-users, which I feel limits their utility some.

CyFishy Traveler

Suddenly, MySpace becomes potentially useful again . . .

Thoria

Let's see, Facebook has no problem with holocaust deniers, but bans photos of mothers breastfeeding as obscene, and cancels the the accounts of SL avatars, but not of music industry celebrities using pseudonyms. None of that pesky integrity for them.

BTRIPP

My main SL Avatar had a Facebook entry almost two years before I deigned to open up account for the "real me"!

Sophrosyne Stenvaag

Hamlet, network validation is a terrific solution. It works for atomic-world celebrities with stage names, why not for us?

I'm surprised, though, that nobody's mentioned the "Facebook For Avatars," Avatars United. The founder, Chrish Mureaux in SL, has created a networking product specifically to our needs, and especially useful for those of us who have presences in more than one world.

You're all welcome to friend me there: http://www.avatarsunited.com/en/avatars/second-life/worldwide/the-world/sophrosyne-stenvaag

In Kenzo

Avatars and Humans cannot be segregated: we started a petition group on Facebook to draw attention to this issue and pursue a more sane solution for Avatar/humans. We do not ask celebrities to only use their legal name, why should avatars be forced to?

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=805374

Nexii Malthus

It serves better to the death of facebook, I just can't see myself logging in anymore, its just a pain to use, unfriendly and driven by goals that almost seem like there is a bigger evil act going on (Data Mining Anyone?)

Bettina Tizzy

Avatar Wizard Gynoid was also banned by Facebook. This is the same individual who collaborates with renown physicist Garret Lisi to create math inspired art. Most recently http://npirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/wizard-gynoid-i-think-its-important-i.html to help us visualize the E8 Polytope, which may at last reveal the link between gravity and the other fundamental forces of nature.

Ah, but she's not real, you see? She's just a cartoon. *Smirk*

Liberty Tesla

You know, if they nuked my FB account, I'm not sure how long it would be before I noticed. Months, maybe. Friendfeed, Twitter, and a gazillion other social websites don't give a flip if you're an avatar or not; and if I want to write on my "wall", well that's what WordPress is for. And then there's my favorite social network of all -- this little thing called "Second Life".

No Facebook just means I'll never get "superpoked" again. Somehow I'd find a way to live with that.

Danton Sideways

Thanks, Wagner, for yet another Public Service Announcement, this time concerning my eviction from Facebook.

The comments on your post provide lots of information and ideas. That another Sideways was recently evicted suggests that the Facebook Team concentrates on obviously unreal last names. I just had the bad luck to choose a name like Danton Sideways, instead of something like Sophrosyne Stenvaag or Dirk Talamasca, which COULD be real names. Yet there is a Facebook member called simply "My Secondlife," and no real person has such a last name, so the eviction decisions seem totally arbitrary.

Despite its obvious drawbacks, Facebook offers a network so large that it is difficult to ignore. Like btripp, I opened my avatar account on Facebook about two years before I opened one for my real identity. I had two separate accounts because I try to hide the real-world identity associated with my avatar, for professional reasons. Maybe the FB algorithms managed to figure out that I had two accounts – though I wonder how, because the only identity key in FB is the email address you give, and I gave two different ones.

A more reasonable policy would be for Facebook to allow members to have two accounts, one real and one virtual, with some sort of identity authentication to tie them together. This once again raises the pertinence of digital identity standards, such as OpenID. Service providers that feel a need to verify the real-world identity of their users could agree to keep that information confidential in the case of an account that displays only the user's virtual identity.

Alanagh Recreant

Identity in an increasingly digitial age is not so easy captured - let alone 'wiped'. It is short-sighted in my opinion.

One would think that a social network like FaceBook would recognise that identity and making REAL connections are not in seated in a name, but in the quality of the conversation and in behaviour.

There is a good reason why I use my Second Life name in social networks such as FaceBook. It does not make it any less valid. The greater concern would be for 'real' people using false identities (fake names and surnames) without any digitial reputation and relationships in Second Life.

Torley

Be brave. Celebrate avatar pride.

Remember when Flickr treated Second Life photos like, well, 3rd-grade snapshots? To be more accurate: we were NIPSA'ed and hidden from public.

Times have changed and there are like, 1 million SL photos on Flickr. Strength in numbers, make it more familiar, helps people to understand. Treat with grace, as one sharing their country's culture and customs would do.

(But yes, I find it bemusingly SAD when tech companies aren't as savvy about "liquid identities" as they should be... for mutual gain)

Ava Dailey (SL)

we all know the rules when we sign up, its that simple...if we get caught take it on the chin and move on.

LL forced me to change my avatars name on SL...its their rules they can do wot they like. FB is exactly the same, their rules and we must comply...

HEAR THE CALL PPL...FB DONT WANT US...TAKE OUR TIME & MONEY ELSEWHERE

and for my friends reading this....see ya inworld

Maria Ru

Look, I have 150 fake Fussbook accounts in many countries. Does Kildenberg go to that level? Give me a brake. Lat time I checke, FB wasn't making any money anyway. Who needs social networking when it is just a fad?

Kat Claxton

Something I wrote in case I should find my account deleted -

"My response to the Facebook Terms of Service Section 4. 'Registration and Account Security' regarding the use of real names:

1. You have provided no clear cut definition of "real". My avatar / SL identity is very real. I do business and provide services to clients under this pseudonym, and I consider this name as much mine as any name I may have been assigned by my parents.

2. Re – Item 1: None of the personal information I have provided is false. My location, e-mail address, date of birth, etc. are all completely accurate and truthful, and my name is also a true name that I identify with. (Items 2 - 7 are not applicable)

3. How do you address stage names? I notice Tom Cruise has a Facebook page and you have not removed it, however his real name is Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. Same thing with 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), David Bowie (David Robert Jones), and Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone), just to name a few.

Based upon how you have chosen to interpret the definition of 'real', you must delete these accounts and the accounts of all other celebrity members who are listed under their stage names. If you feel they have not violated any TOS rules, then it's only fair that you reinstate my account on that basis."

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