asiamedia.ucla.edu — The internet real-name system, designed to prevent cyber crimes such as libel and privacy infringement, will be applied to Web portals and websites of public organizations with over 100,000 visitors per day. The system will require Web users to identify themselves with their real names when posting entries and commenting on others' articles.
Jan 12, 2007 View in Crawl 4
sakumiJan 13, 2007
That's funny. To bad people will just disregard it.
kingwiqidJan 13, 2007
if you cannot put your name behind your comments than perhaps your comment aren't worthy of posting. Fun to talk s**t with a mask on huh? equating this with taking away freedoms is inaccurate - you will still be free to say whatever you want - you just have to be accountable for what you say ? whats the problem?
vegangJan 13, 2007
Government enforcement of politeness is whack.
sotopheavyJan 13, 2007
anonymous speech is good. but maybe we could use a gov issued email address. think about keeping sex offenders off myspace... and more
aamir2Jan 13, 2007
Disclaimer: Long PostAround and after 9/11 (while I was abroad) I had the misfortune of using the Yahoo message boards to discuss the issue and get everyones reaction. The abysmal quality of the so called discussions and my own instictive reaction to a post got me thinking about the overall impact this had on our society. I wrote the rant attached below but by the time I was done writing it, I decided not to post it as I felt it would fall on deaf ears. I never posted this anywhere to this day. We all have opinions and ideas, some of which may not be well grounded. We can all be wrong about, at least some of what we say and post on the internet, which at a later time even we ourselves may disagree with. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is something terribly wrong with dehumanization of our fellow human beings just because they disagree with us. I realized that anonymity was a problem. Ever since that day on Yahoo message boards, I have a simple rule with my internet posting, I always use my real name and where possible my full name. I also have one simple goal, which is if 30 years from now I read my posts on the internet and I was wrong about almost everything I said that would be fine, but I don't want to read something I posted and be ashamed of my behavior towards another person. Using my own name in no way curtails my ability express my opinions on the internet. On the other hand it reenforces the content of my posts as something I truly believe in, and not something a fictitious character invented by me might say. Using my own name makes me think that extra moment about not just what I am saying, but also how I am saying it. Aamir__________________________________________________________________________Open Letter to Yahoo and fellow usersDear Yahoo and Friends,I have been an avid user of the Yahoo service for about 7 years now. When I first used Yahoo, it was no more than a Web directory with a search capability. It has come a long way since and now it is a shinning example of the potential of the internet. I use and love most Yahoo service and like a lot of people out there. Yahoo is my primary destination on the internet. Lately however I have been getting more and more concerned about the content and impact of Yahoo Message boards on not just the American society but human society at large. Please do not dismiss this as a crazy technophobe or luddite notion. What is happening on these forums has never happened in the history of mankind before. Hundreds of thousand of people from completely different backgrounds, cultures, races, religions, ideologies, etc. are "talking" with each other. Millions more are reading what these people are saying to each other. While this has rightly been seen as an opportunity to bring people closer or help people from different backgrounds understand each other, what is happening on the Yahoo boards is in complete contrast to that honorable goal and potential. The yahoo message boards currently seem like a social experiment gone horribly wrong (This is not not specific to Yahoo, but Yahoo is most relevant example for the sheer volume of the eyeballs it gets). Without going into specifics, many people on the boards are entrenched in this wild frenzy of spewing vitriol against each other religions, cultures, nationalities, races, etc. Most of these post are full of prejudice, bigotry and racism and violate many of the terms of services listed by Yahoo. Yahoo's current remedy of reporting abuser is completely inadequate to deal with the greater social problem being created by these boards.Millions of people across the world use Yahoo and among them are impressionable young minds who may not be able to associate proper context to everything they read on such boards. These young minds may actually take content to be representative of the thought process of most people in America. They probably would not even understand the fact most of these posts may not even originate in the America or even the west. These young people will react with prejudice of their own. These current forums are changing the human society by lowering the bar of the social interaction which is fast approaching that of animals. It is not that everyone who posts hateful remarks are bad people. But the problem is that on these forums encourage the bad persona of good people to take over. Some could be "reacting" to an attack on themselves and their beliefs, but in doing so they are just contributing to this domino effect which will eventually spill past the anonymous evil persona we assume on the web into our daily lives. It is like a drug that you think you are going to just shoot on the web but you will soon see taking over your life. Mistreating a person who looks or act even slightly differently from us will become as easy and natural as doing the same on the web. This WILL happen unless we do something about it.Some might say what is happening on the boards is just reflection of society or an example of freedom of speech intermingled with the power of the web. Well it is and it is not, freedom of speech is not an absolute, say whatever you want, right. In most states in America using fowl language, like used on this boards, in public places will get you arrested under indecency laws. Having said that like voltaire I believe in "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death, your right to say it." But as long as you have something to say which does not undermine the human society itself, because if you take away the social out of "Social animal" guess what we are left with. Having said all this, here is what I think - my opinion, but other may suggest their own ideas - yahoo should do to make the Message boards a forum for discussion of issues instead of place indulge in and get trained in sub-human behavior:1) Make public information about the poster actual location, i.e. the country they are posting from NOT where they claim to be in their profile.2) Implement AUTOMATIC strong profanity filters in message contents and nick names used.3) Automatically warn users trying to use profanity in their posts. If they do not desist remove their accounts.4) Make public the "real name" and all the other nick names used by each poster, maybe in the profile section.5) For functional reasons implement better thread support.Disclosure: I am Muslim and I am appalled at the hatred being demonstrated against muslims here. Would I have posted this rant, if say Jews were being targeted here? Maybe not, but I sure hope some reasonable Jewish person would have and I would at least raised my voice in support. I have also fallen prey to this domino effect once and "reacted" with a prejudiced post of my own (albeit extremely tame compared to the standard on these boards) against prejudice. I knew immediately that I was letting a prejudiced statement change me into someone I wasn't. I have been thinking about this social degeneration at a larger scale ever since and hence this post.I hope yahoo takes a look at this issue, because it is a serious one. It may not seem like much now but it can get worse. Also I hope people think about themselves to see if they are falling prey to this domino effect. Would you act this way and say these things to someone in person ? If not then you are just training yourself and others to do just that. You are not this person. The society and your family did not raise you to be this person. You did not grow up wanting to be this person. You don't want to be this person. Stop before you turn into him/her.Thanks for reading,Aamir (DancesWithBullz) Moghal__________________________________________________________
christiaJan 14, 2007
"Everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law... or by a potential employer... or landlord..."