Tuesday, December 2, 2014

An analysis of the real name issue on social media sites (F.L.)

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 students on campus randomly were chosen as major survey samples. In addition, it was agreed that the respondents in this survey were not required to be students. The respondents could be anybody on campus, including non-students. And the survey form consisted of a few simple questions including demographic information and the opinion towards a real name policy of social media. Additionally, there were two ways to conduct this survey: (1) paper-based survey and (2) online survey. The paper-based survey was adopted in most cases, and a few survey forms were conducted online.
At first, 152 people on the Texas Tech University campus were randomly selected as survey samples. Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock, Texas and has a history of over 90 years. It has 44,265 students including undergraduate students, master students and Ph.D students (Texas Tech University, 2013). The students are from over 90 countries around the world and most of them are American. In addition, most of their ages range from 15 years old to 50 years old. Generally speaking, Texas Tech University is a typical American university and its students are a typical sample of American university students. Moreover, most Texas Tech University students are young people. Therefore, I would say that their viewpoints can be said to represent the ideas of American university students, even young people. And Texas Tech students are good samples for our research. About 200 people on Texas Tech University campus were randomly chosen to represent Texas Tech students to fill out the survey forms.
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 (more detail see Table 1).
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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