[ben0x539]

The problem with "people could just create fake identities" is that they'd basically be permanently living with the fear of being caught by google and having their entire identity erased, and all the comments would just be "duh, what did they expect creating an alternate email address with a fake name?"

That a bad policy is inconsistently enforced doesn't really make it any less harmful. Selective enforcement is more evil if anything, imo.

> Btw, am I the only one to find the article title offensive, and unworthy of a place like zdnet?

It's much less offensive than the G+ real name policy, so that's a weird focus. ;)

[fzltrp]

Well sure, as long as the real name policy is actively enforcable by G (which I doubt, but someone else apparently had to go through their enforcment practice), there's a risk. Then maybe it means that G isn't the right medium to express oneself anonymously and have an official virtual life. As I said, the only real problem is that policy.

> It's much less offensive than the G+ real name policy, so that's a weird focus. ;)

I don't think we have the same definition of offensive (please correct me if my second language english is wrong). That policy was harmful, but I wouldn't qualify it as offensive. I think the article provides good examples where it was harmful.

That said, if you don't think it's inappropriate for someone to use anonymity (or is it her real name?) to insult someone else, you won't mind if I finish this comment by the same sentence? I won't, because I know that it's not necessary, and it would undermine the message I'm trying to convey, as it does in her case.

[ben0x539]

> I don't think we have the same definition of offensive (please correct me if my second language english is wrong). That policy was harmful, but I wouldn't qualify it as offensive. I think the article provides good examples where it was harmful.

I'm also not a native english speaker so I might well be misusing the term.

To me, it's not so much that it's harmful, but that the people it's harming, who are likely already marginalized, disadvantaged groups, are just entirely discounted and brushed off because they don't conform to some convenient but real-world-incompatible idea of how people live their identities. That harm and those people are apparently not as important as some business goal. That offends me.

Meanwhile, someone on the internet getting angry enough to use an insult like that is just a form of expression, it helps to define the emotional context of the writing, conveys some indignance, etc.

Why would an insult convey more offense than all the criticism in the article already does? I guess one might argue that abandoning a courteous "tone" of writing betrays a lack of respect. Imo the article already makes it pretty clear (especially towards the end) that respect has been lost, so the insult hardly makes that "offense" any worse. The author doesn't feel respected by Brin and feels exploited, so why would Brin be owed civility in turn?

It's also a particularly harmless insult that as far as I can tell has no vile connotations and implies nothing worse about the subject than that they're a jerk, so basically that they come off as disrespectful. It's pretty easy to convey that one thinks that someone is a jerk, or an asshole, or whatever, and it's usually considered okay to do so, so I don't see why being direct about it is more offensive rather than just, say, more abrasive or less polite.

In the situation of basically-helpless end user raging against the machine that is Google, I don't really think anonymity matters either. Unlike in a case of actual harmful harassment or abuse, I don't think Brin has a legimitate interest in discovering the whatever personal information about the insulting party, and if he thinks he does there are probably plenty of legal ways to go about it.

And anyway, whether the name on the article is the author's "real name" or not (contemplating which seems kind of ironic in this context), it's at most ~pseudonymous~, not anonymous at all. The name is definitely linked to a real identity, and anyway, authors have been getting away with completely made-up pen names for ages.

It's kind of strange to me that apparently it's more appropriate to insult someone if one puts one's real (however that is measured) identity on the line, given how wildly that varies in significance and consequences. That'd set the bar to entry at really unfairly different heights for different people.

That's a lot of words about this sidetrack, sorry for probably boring you, but I'm kinda fascinated by how people differ in deciding whether something is offensive.

[fzltrp]

>That harm and those people are apparently not as important as some business goal. That offends me.

I understand your point.

> Why would an insult convey more offense than all the criticism in the article already does?

That really depends on the aim of the article. If it is to express a feeling, fine, she did express her feeling. If it is to make a point, she shouldn't, or one might simply say she cannot have a rational discussion, because it simply doesn't prove anything. Google didn't use insult, it undisclosed private information. While it is senseless, it's not an offense, in the sense that there's no proof that it was intended to hurt. I don't believe that S. Brin woke up one day with the idea of harming people, or do you think that is what happened? If it were the case: if I had been the victim of a deliberate attempt at hurting me by disclosing things about me that I consider private, I would be seriously pissed. The question is: was it deliberate, or was it simply an error, or a misunderstanding? People make mistakes, that's unfortunate, but it's understandable. She, otoh, cursed voluntarily.

> It's also a particularly harmless insult that as far as I can tell

That's anyone's appreciation. In a different culture, it might well be the worse thing you could say to someone. The fact that it carry already a insulting connotation is enough: there's no way someone could take it as a compliment, thus whether it is harmless or the worse one could say is besides the point, the message is clear.

> That's a lot of words about this sidetrack

For a minor issue, that happened in _the title_, but I surely don't care that much.

[ben0x539]

> If it is to make a point, she shouldn't, or one might simply say she cannot have a rational discussion, because it simply doesn't prove anything.

One might say that, but I don't think that would delegitimatize her position at all. If someone seeks to be offended to avoid having to engage with the actual argument, that's on them, and they probably didn't need the pretense of caring about the insult to begin with.

> The question is: was it deliberate, or was it simply an error, or a misunderstanding? People make mistakes, that's unfortunate, but it's understandable.

The problems with google's approach have been pointed out almost immediately after their policy became known. If it was a simple mistake in the sense of an accident, it would have been corrected then. Google might not have set out to cause harm, but drafting their policies and sticking to them in contempt of the harm they are causing is a deliberate, voluntary move.

For a hamhanded car analogy, if someone parks in a parking space for the disabled out of laziness, and now some guy in a wheelchair has to cover another block's worth of distance because he had to park elsewhere, it's not okay just because they didn't do it to cause him harm, it's still bad because they didn't care enough about not causing him harm to avoid it. Something that hurts a disadvantaged group out of disregard for their needs rather than out of malice is still cause for offense and not just a mistake.

> In a different culture, it might well be the worse thing you could say to someone.

I think that's really unlikely. I might conjecture a hypothetical culture where insults are expected and polite, but I think it's sufficient to look at the actual cultural context. Correct me if I am missing something, but "jerkface" is the blandest, least serious insult I can think of. It doesn't invoke gross body parts, religion, sexual language, the subject's intelligence, morals, looks or status. In fact, I cannot imagine anyone using it without irony, going intentionally for a weak and childish insult.

> For a minor issue, that happened in _the title_, but I surely don't care that much.

Yeah, just to be clear, I didn't mean to complain that you started talking about the title, just that I needed so many words to respond.

[fzltrp]

> The problems with google's approach have been pointed out almost immediately after their policy became known.

I've been the devil's advocate til now, I will not give up so easily. If people knew about this policy, then they couldn't have opt out of the service and look for something more amenable to their needs of privacy, couldn't they?

>For a hamhanded car analogy, if someone parks in a parking space for the disabled out of laziness, and now some guy in a wheelchair has to cover another block's worth of distance because he had to park elsewhere,

The policy there wasn't that someone took that reserved parking place, it's that the place simply disappeared from that parking lot. So yeah, it does suck, but there are other parking lots to use (which also mean other shops, if that guy in a wheelchair liked Google's ones, tough luck).

> I think that's really unlikely. I might conjecture a hypothetical culture where insults are expected and polite, but I think it's sufficient to look at the actual cultural context. Correct me if I am missing something, but "jerkface" is the blandest, least serious insult I can think of. It doesn't invoke gross body parts, religion, sexual language, the subject's intelligence, morals, looks or status. In fact, I cannot imagine anyone using it without irony, going intentionally for a weak and childish insult.

Really? Do kids use that insult? Well, I don't speak English fluently enough (especially cursing), and I'm not going to pull a dictionary definition to verify it. If indeed it's as you say, then that's a misunderstanding on my side, and I clearly deserved a downvote for that. I'll take your word for it.