Today I read about a program called “Real persons, real names” run by facebook by which they want to force people to use their real names on their profiles. There are very good reasons for not complying.

First fall I do not want to disclose my full name it at all times. There are many cases where I would like to hide my last name for those I do not know or haven’t admitted to my own network. This alone should be a reason to allow people to not enter their last name. There are many people who are so popular that they get stalked all time.

But besides that there is a deeper issue facebook requiring its users to give all its personal information. There is no option to opt out from facebook’s hunger and for personal information. Even if you choose to opt out, Facebook has constructed its website in a way that it once you share content or likes, it will be made public through the settings of other peoples profiles who care less about their privacy and have set their profiles accordingly. At the same time getting away from facebook is hard because at the moment it’s the dominant profile site in the world. If I would like to exit I would lose contact with many people whom I do not have other contact information for.

But the real danger is that I will be prosecuted based on facebook data. Governments all over the world have given themselves access to all the private databases in order to enforce laws. This itself is a very dangerous practice, but with facebook requiring you to enter your full name it’ll become impossible to hide your data from prying eyes. Of course if you would like to hide his should be using facebook, but at the same time one should have a possibility to express themselves in a way they themselves would like to.

All in all Facebook has no right to demand a full last name for various reasons. Not only is because it poses a danger to those who use it. If Facebook is serious about its users rights and security, it would not persecute its users in a way which can only be described as extremely nerdy, where the truth is the only thing that counts and personal security considerations are deemed secondary.