ON THE CARDS: Internet trolling expert Jonathan Bishop thinks social media website should verify user’s real identity while allowing them to use nicknames. Courtesy: Steve Powderhill Photography.
Internet trolling expert, Jonathan Bishop, has said the real names policy adopted by Facebook is misguided and won’t properly balance the freedoms of ordinary members of the public in the face of anonymous trolls.
Jonathan Bishop has long called for identity checks to be made on users of social media, but says that in the wake of the Defamation Act 2013 people should also be allowed to use nicknames. “Facebook’s policy that people should have to use the name on their credit cards will not solve the problem of Anonymous trolling,” he said. “They would actually have to require users to register their cards and that would allow them to have a person’s house number and post code to pass on under section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 to anyone they spread defamatory remarks about.”
In July, Google dropped its real name policy, citing the fact that nicknames are commonly used. A spokesperson said they had intended to “create a community made up of real people,” but that the decision “also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names.”
But Bishop said a balance can be struck by using behind the scenes identity checking. “Providing identity checks are done, such as by using credit cards, or indeed passport checks as used by Amazon, then users can be accountable,” he said. “People should still be allowed to use nicknames after their real identity is confirmed, but I also think pseudonyms that are intended to hide a users’s identity should be replaced with the choice to name oneself ‘Anonymous’ as that is the accepted shared name for those wishing to keep anonymity.
“The fact is that the Internet affords little right to anonymity to whistle-blowers in repressive countries as the governments can still read their emails and track their IP addresses.”
