Identity within social web

Has anyone heard of the happening of a Salman Rushdie’s identity on Facebook recently? If not then here is a rundown. Salman Rushdie has a Facebook account that uses his name as he prefers it to be, Salman Rushdie, however Facebook purposefully changed it, without Rushdie’s consent to Ahmed Rushdie, which in fact is Rushdie’s proper name.

Not just Facebook uses this action, Twitter has been known to do something similar to cut back on the amount of Twitter accounts that are dedicated to celebrities with profile names such as, for example, @FakeSarahPalin by showing users that the account is verified with a blue tick. But yet it considers accounts like this to be grounds for suspension.

Google+, the latest social networking website, has been renowned for its feature to ensure that its users actually use their actual identities to avoid any aliases being used. And in fact has suspended users accounts that have used aliases.

The point is should social networking websites have the decision to change our profile names (whether they be nicknames, initials, or aliases) that we use so people that we know can recognise us online?

Another aspect of identity in social web that has raised a concern is an app that uses facial recognition. It is said to be based on the Facebook photo tagging feature, that until recently has begun using something similar to automatically tag users in photos/images.

Although it seems this app is for advertising and commercial purposes. It raises privacy concerns, for example (Singer, 2011) “…if the next generation of mall billboards could analyze skin quality and then publicly display an ad for acne cream, or detect sadness and serve up an ad for antidepressants?”, something like this could cause so much intrusion that will result in public humiliation.

Moreover something like this does give the question of what is to stop an app like this from being adapted to record our images.

Do you think social web is going too far with our identities and/or facial recognition?

To find the full articles of the 2 accounts mentioned, please follow the relevant links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/technology/hiding-or-using-your-name-online-and-who-decides.html?ref=socialnetworking

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/business/face-recognition-moves-from-sci-fi-to-social-media.html?ref=socialnetworking

Reference

Singer, N, 2011. Face Recognition Makes the Leap From Sci-Fi. The New York Times, [online] 12 November. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/business/face-recognition-moves-from-sci-fi-to-social-media.html?ref=socialnetworking [Accessed on 16 November 2011]