Abstract
Social
media are becoming an important part of our society and redefine the way modern
people interact with each other. Social media companies presented a real name
policy to mandate all users to use their real names on their accounts in order to
decrease the risk associated with pseudonyms several years ago. However, it has
raised a war between social media users and social media companies because a
few social media users fight against this policy. To better understand this
war, a research was conducted to know people’s attitudes toward the real name
policy of social media. In this research, a survey form including two questions
about the real name policy of social media was at first designed. Secondly, people
on Texas Tech campus were randomly selected to fill out the survey forms. Last,
the survey results were analyzed using a statistical methodology. The results
show that the majority of survey respondents supported the real name policy of
social media and used their real names on their social media accounts. In
addition, survey respondents’ attitudes towards the real name policy of social
media and using real names on social media accounts varied by their demographic
information, such as gender, nationality and level of study.
Introduction
It is reported that 58% people around
the world use social media and the number of people using social media is still
increasing (Social Networking Statistics, 2014). For example, Facebook says
that it has over 1 billion people using Facebook every month, with 23% percent
growth from last year (Associated Press, 2013). Social media are becoming an
important part of our society and redefine the way modern people interact with
each other (Guha, 2014). Social media are changing the world in terms of news
(Bennett, 2013), human interactions (Jones, 2013), political landscape (Tchong,
2012) and learning (Cushard, 2013) and marketing (Whaling, 2011). However, it
is warned that the risks of false information are growing with the increment of
the use of social media (Goodwin, 2013). Fake user names are considered as one
type of false information on social media sites and result in confusion for
some social media users. Therefore many social media companies have presented a
real name policy. However, a few social media users, like technologists Jamie
Zawinski, Violet Blue and Kevin Marks, and some organizations, such as Electronic
Frontier Foundation, have fought against it. One reason is that they think using
real names on social media could endanger a few individuals like victims of
violence. In fact, it has raised a war between users of social media and social
media companies (Tao, 2011). It is possible and likely the majority of people
don’t care it much. Also, the most vocal opponents may only be people who mind the
world knowing that they are using fake names. However, it is still urgent and
important to know how many people support the real name policy, in order to
better understand this conflict.
In this research, people’s attitudes toward the real name
policy of social media were investigated. To be specific, the percentage of
people that agreed with the real name policy of social media was computed. The
percentage of people who use real names to register on social media sites was
also determined. Therefore, a survey about these two questions was conducted
for Tech students considering their ages and genders etc. Finally, the survey
results were analyzed.
Literature review
The real name policy states that
everyone registered on social media sites is mandated to use the real name by
social media companies (Levy, 2014). However, a few social media users have disagreed
with this policy and had a conflict with social media companies. This conflict
is called Nymwars (Galperin, 2011). This word is very popular because of the
hashtag “#nymwars” on Twitter (Twitter, 2014). The real name issue has existed
from the initial stage of online identity. The first case was Blizzard’s
RealID. It started in July 2010. The name on the credit card of the player was
exposed.
When
Google+ was released in late June 2011, Google announced a real name policy,
considering that many users used nicknames, pseudo names to sign up. This
policy was to help to fight against spam and keep from pseudo profiles and
encourage users to use their real names on their accounts. The first victim for
the real name policy happened in July 2011. Several accounts were suspended,
such as Limor Fried’s account that contained the name “LadyAda”. In the
following weeks, account suspensions included those who used nicknames,
pseudonyms and handles on their accounts and those who used unusual legal
names. Also, account suspensions included mononymous users and a few users that
Google determined that they were impersonating famous people, like the founder
of Mozilla creator Blake Ross from Facebook. The real name policy issue spread
out quickly through Twitter and other social media sites. In August, Electronic
Frontier Foundation posted “A Case for Pseudonymity” to fight against this real
name policy. In order to reduce the pressure from the opponents, Google VP
Bradley Horowitz firstly responded and made a promise that Google would improve
the process of the suspension. Later, Google presented a “grace period” prior
to suspension and a “verified account” program for famous people. At the Web
2.0 Summit on 19 October 2011, it was revealed by the Google executive Vic
Gundotra that Google would start to support fake names and other kinds of
identity in the following few months. However, according to the Google policy
document on 16 October 2012, Google still asked users to put their common first
and last name into use on their accounts.
On
the other hand, the real name policy has been always supported by Facebook
because Facebook think that the real name policy can help to keep its community
safe and make sure that Facebook users know who you are in contact with. The
Salman Rushdie’s account was blocked by Facebook in November 2011 as result of
the real name issue. And Facebook said that there were greater than 83 million
fake accounts on Facebook in August 2012. Facebook has since alleged that it
was very important to have authentic identities for the Facebook experience and
its aim was that every Facebook account should have a real corresponding
individual.
However,
many social media users fought against this policy (Kayyali and York, 2014). A
few influential commentators, such as technologists Kevin Marks, Violet Blue
and Robert Scoble and some organizations like the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, criticized the real name policy in public. The main criticisms are
following:
1)
The policy deteriorates long-term Internet culture and
traditions.
2)
It could be not safe for some individuals when using their
real names online.
3)
Having a pseudonym does not equal to being anonymous. To an
extent a pseudonym can be used to represent an authentic person.
4)
The real name policy insufficiently prevents spam on social
media.
5)
The policy cannot stop from trolls. Social media sites would
like encourage their users to develop healthy social criterions, rather than
forcefully tell their users how they have to behave.
Owing
to the great pressure of these social media users, social media companies
successively determined to stop the real name policy. It’s very likely that
social media companies backed down because they were afraid of losing
customers. Thus, Google+ dropped the real-name policy and apologized to Google+
users in July 2014 (Doctorow, 2014). Facebook also canceled the real name
policy and apologized to Facebook users on October 1, 2014 (Coldewey, 2014).
Methodology
This research used a sampling survey
method. It included three parts: (1) the selection of survey samples, (2) the
survey agreement and (3) the survey form. Specifically, Texas Tech University
At
first, 152 people on the Texas
Tech University Texas
Tech University
is located in Lubbock , Texas Texas Tech University Texas
Tech University Texas
Tech University Texas Tech
University
Secondly,
the agreement of the survey was very flexible. All respondents on campus were
considered to be acceptable, no matter whether or not they were students or whether
or not they were American. Moreover, the respondents gave their answers from
their own mind. They were not mandated to fill out all the items on the survey.
They could miss some questions that they did want to answer. And they could
give any answer that they wanted to give.
Thirdly,
the survey form was designed for research questions in our research. In the
survey form, there were two questions of most interest for this report. The
first one was to ask respondents whether they supported the real name policy of
social media. And the second one was asking whether they used their real names
to register on social media sites. The first question was to find out people’s attitudes
toward the real name policy, while the second one was to find out about people’s
actions toward the real name policy in reality. These two questions helped us
to explore people’s ideas on the real name policy of social media.
Finally,
the survey results were analyzed using statistical techniques. The variations
of people’s attitudes towards the real name policy over nationality, gender and
education level were analyzed using a multivariate statistical analysis.
Results
152
forms were collected including 137 forms from the paper-based survey and 15
forms from the online survey. Moreover, about a half of survey respondents were
female; over half of respondents were undergraduate students; and the majority
of respondents came from the USA
Table 1 the
description of survey respondents
Item name
|
Description
|
Percentage
|
Gender
|
80 females
72 males
|
52.63% females
47.37% males
|
Education
level
|
85 undergraduates
59 graduates
8 non-students
|
55.92% undergraduates
38.82% graduates
5.26% non-students
|
Nationality
|
120 American
32 Internationals
|
78.95% American
21.05% Internationals
|
It
was found that the vast majority of respondents used social media (shown in
Figure 1). The graph shows that Facebook was the most used one for respondents among
nine popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram,
Pinterest, Snapchat, Ello, Vine and Google+. It was about 93.42% of respondents
who at least had an account on Facebook. In addition, Figure (1) shows that
Facebook was most known by survey respondents, then Youtube, Twitter,
instagram, Snapchat, Googe+, Pinterest, Vine and Ello. Figure (2) indicates
that the most accounts that survey respondents have was Youtube, then Google+,
Twitter, Facebok, Instagram, Snapchat and Vine, Pinterest and Ello. It can be
observed from Figure (3) that the most posted or used occasionally social media
for survey respondents was Facebook, then Youtube and Instagram, Twitter,
Snapchat, Pinterest, Google+, Vine and Ello. And Figure (4) shows that the most
posted regularly social media by survey respondents was Snapchat, then
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Youtube, Google+, Vine and Ello.
Figure 1 The percentage of
respondents who used social media
Additionally,
it was found that the majority of respondents supported the real name policy
and used their real names on social media accounts (shown in Figure 2). The
graph shows that 77.63% of survey respondents supported the real name policy of
social media and 73.03% of respondents used their real names to create their
accounts on social media sites. In addition, the graph indicates that some
respondents would like to use fake user names on social media, even though they
supported the real name policy of social media.
Figure 2 The attitudes
towards the real name policy and using real names on social media accounts
Secondly,
respondents’ viewpoints on the real name policy and using real names on social
media accounts were varied by gender, level of study and nationality.
1)
Males were more likely to support the real name policy and
use real names on social media sites than females (shown in Figure 3). The graph indicates that about 76.25% of females
and 79.17% of males supported the real name policy of social media, and 70.89% of
females and 76.39% of males registered on social media sites using their real
names.
Figure 3 Gender with
respect to the real name policy and using real names on social media accounts
2)
Undergraduate students supported the real name policy most, and
then non-students and graduate students, while non-students would most likely
use real names on social media site accounts, then undergraduate students and graduate
students (shown in Figure 4). The figure shows that about 75% of non-students, 83.53%
of undergraduate students and 69.49% of graduate students supported the real
name policy of social media, and 87.5% of non-students and 75.29% of undergraduate
students and 68.97% of graduate students registered on social media sites using
their real names.
Figure
4 Level of study with respect to the real name policy and using real names on
social media accounts
3)
Internationals more likely support the real name policy than Americans
while Americans more likely used their real names on social media accounts than
Internationals (shown in Figure 5). The figure showed that about 76.67% of Americans
and 81.25% of Internationals supported the real name policy of social media,
and 77.31% of Americans and 59.38% of Internationals registered on social media
sites using their real names.
Figure 5 Nationality with
respect to the real name policy and using real names on social media accounts
Discussion
These
survey results could be used to infer people’s usage of social media sites, people’s
attitudes towards the real name policy of social media and using real names on
social media accounts.
Regarding
the usage of social sites, most of people used social media sites and the most
used social media network was Facebook. Similar results were found in the study
by John McDermott (2014). This result could reflect people’s habits of using
social media, because most of our friends in the real world used Facebook and
other social media networks.
In
addition, the majority of people supported the real name policy of social media
and used their real names to create accounts on social media sites, although a
few people were opposed to the real name policy of social media and refused to
use real names to register on social media sites. In general, this result was
beyond the expectations of most people, because it was usually assumed that the
majority of people fought against the real name policy of social media and
using real names on social media accounts owing to private rights and security
issues. The reason people supported the real name policy and using real names on
social media accounts could be that the majority of people preferred to have authentic
social network environments, even though their private rights and securities were
violated by the real name policy. This may be a tradeoff for them between the
benefits and harms of the real name policy.
People’s
attitudes towards the real name policy and using real names on social media
accounts were analyzed over people’s demography.
1)
Females were more likely to support the real name policy and use
real names on social media accounts than males. There could be actually several
possibilities for why women and men differed here. This may be because a few
males were afraid that they were found to have other girlfriends by their
girlfriends when they used real name accounts on social media. And females
would like to be aware of the activities of their boyfriends on the Internet
when using real names on social media accounts. In addition, this could be
because females were more likely to communicate with real people on social
media sites than males.
2)
The percentage of undergraduate students supporting the real
name policy was the highest, and then non-students, then graduate students. On
the other hand, non-students were most likely to use their real names on social
media accounts, and then undergraduate students, then graduate students. There
could be several reasons to explain this. Maybe one of them was that graduate
students had a higher education, and they considered more about their private
rights and security issues.
3)
The internationals were more likely to support the real name policy
of social media than Americans, while Americans were more likely to use their
real names on social media accounts than Internationals. The first result may
be due to the difference in their cultures. Americans emphasized their private rights
while internationals from other parts of the world, such as Asia ,
considered their private rights little in their own countries. The second
result may be also due to difference in their cultures. Americans may be more
straightforward and believe social media sites would protect their profiles
than Internationals. Another possibility is that internationals are afraid of
repercussions at home, from what they do on social media in the USA
Conclusion
In
this research, people’s attitudes towards the real name policy of social media have
been studied by a sampling survey method. In this survey, two questions about
the real name policy of social media were included in the survey forms; and 152
people on Texas Tech campus were randomly selected as respondents; at last the
survey results were analyzed using statistical techniques. The results showed
that most survey respondents supported the real name policy of social media and
used real names on their social media accounts. The results also showed that the
attitudes of survey respondents towards the real name policy of social media
and using real names on social media accounts were varied by their demographic
information, such as gender, nationality and level of study. In addition, some explanations
for the results have been discussed.
In
the future, further research will be needed to conduct to explain why the
majority of respondents supported the real name policy of social media and used
real names on social media accounts, and why respondents’ attitudes were varied
by their demographic information.
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