There's more to Internet privacy than your character name
For those who missed it, Blizzard’s very-briefly considered Real ID initiative would have had people using their real names on the World of Warcraft forums instead of clever handles like “ElectroPenisSlayer.” The idea was that, by not hiding behind a handle, people would be less likely to issue threats, talk smack, and be general a-holes on the forums.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
The outrage from the player community was immediate and blistering. There were the usual “I quit” remarks, as well as a general uproar from privacy advocates. One (perhaps overly obsessed) soul even went so far as to start a blog detailing all the personal information he was able to easily collect on the Internet on Blizzard bigwigs Mike Morhaime, Greg Canessa, and Micah Whippie. The creator of the site insists that the posts are not meant to be threatening; instead, they serve as an example of how easy it is to collect such info and how it would be relatively easy for someone to find out where you live and potentially harm you or your loved ones based on something you did in the game or said on the forums.
The concerns regarding privacy are understandable. In 2005, a Chinese man killed a fellow player over a dispute regarding the sale of an in-game weapon from the game Mir. In 2007, a Russian Lineage 2 player was killed when he tried to break up a dispute between two in-game rivals at an Internet café. There have probably been other instances of property damage, harassment, and other real-life crimes committed against MMO players, not to mention the usual online suspects like identity theft and account hacking. Internet crime is real, no doubt about it – but do MMO players really have to worry about someone coming to their homes to stab them with a real-life +5 broadsword just because of something that happened in a game?
Let me be clear on one thing: I think Real ID isn’t a good idea. An online gaming forum is not the place to try and pioneer new social guidelines regarding identity and accountability, and Blizzard whiffed on trying to force it on gamers. Games are meant to be fun and escapist. I use a handle when I visit online gaming sites, not because I’m worried about some loony with a grudge, but because “Karzender” sounds cooler than “Jason Winter.” Everyone wants to appear cool in a game, and I respect that.
But, as a whole, I think the concept of Real ID – that people should be held accountable for what they say and do in the Internet, just as they are in any other public forum (by which I don’t mean message boards, per se) – is a reasonable and potentially inevitable consequence of our increasingly online world. And I, for one, am not afraid.
My real name is at the top of this article. It can also be found in our magazines, which are based out of
To all this I say: So what?
I’ve been on the Internet for nearly 20 years. The tools have certainly changed, and it’s easier than ever to find public information about pretty much everyone, but that’s why it’s called “public.” I can still find references to the address and phone number I had in college, 15 years ago, both of which you could have found out by looking in a Duluth, Minnesota phone book in 1995. In all that time, I’ve never had any reason to fear someone coming after me as retribution for something I said or did online.
Maybe my enemies are just lazy.
There could, of course, be other reasons. I’m male, for one thing, which greatly cuts down on the possibility of cyberstalkers (ladies, you don’t know what you’re missing). The most relevant one, I think, is that I try not to be a jerk. Just being on the Internet doesn’t give you carte blanche to be an a-hole, which is how a lot of people seem to think. I’ve always tried to be the same person online that I am in person. (OK, so maybe I’m wittier, more eloquent, and far more handsome online.)
Even if you’re a saint, though, there’s going to be someone who hates you (or likes you a little too much) for some reason or another and who might – stress on might – come after you. But for all the millions, if not billions, of words, inflammatory and amorous, spewed forth every day on the Internet, how many result in some sort of tangible harm to one of the parties? You’ve got a much better chance of being struck by lighting or hit by a bus than you do of having some yahoo track you down via the Internet and murder you and your family.
The Internet is still in its relative infancy, which leads, I think, to people overestimating the danger inherent in such a “new-fangled” innovation. Airplanes and automobiles in the early 20th century faced a similar PR battle; I once saw a collection of political cartoons from that time period that railed against those dangerous deathtraps on wheels that could speed down the highway at the mind-boggling speed of 30 mph! Sure, the early Model T’s didn’t have all the safety features of modern automobiles, but that didn’t stop people from driving them.
The Internet’s not going away, and it’s going to have more and more public information stored on it in the future, not less. In fact, I think it will be more and more integrated into our public lives over the next century as, bluntly, the people who didn’t grow up with it die off and the people who haven’t known life before there was an Internet assume positions of power. You probably already use your real name for “official” business all over the Internet, unless your bank accepts “ElectroPenisSlayer” as your account holder. True, that’s not publicly available, but even if it were, I don’t have a problem stating that I have an account with Bank of America.
People have been attaching their names to what they write for millennia. Just because the Internet is now the medium of choice for many doesn’t mean that should change. We can all hide behind our fake names for fear of some boogeyman-like retribution, the same way we tend overreact to overblown national security issues, or we can accept that using fanciful, made-up names was something most of us gave up when we were kids. Use them if you want to for fun, but don’t expect them to shield you from the real world.
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