Outrage culture at its finest; then again, it's The Verge, so I'm hardly surprised.
The author has absolutely no argument apart from a dubious anecdote by a reddit user. It also cleverly ignores every counter-example out there, e.g.: Tinder uses real names, Bumble uses real names, Hinge uses real names. I mean, by its own admission, the article is much ado about nothing: "Via email, a company spokesperson told The Verge that OKCupid won’t require legal names, but the shift is already unpopular with users."
What's the difference between a non-legal name and a web handle? That you can use underscores and numbers in the latter? Why are people getting mad, again?
Those other websites don't have extensive question lists encouraging users to reveal sensitive information about their political, religious and sexual interests.
People who are interested in kink, for example, are highly represented on OkCupid because they can advertise it without worrying about being identified by co-workers, family members, fellow church-goers and whatnot; similarly they typically don't want to be stalked by strangers either.
There's also the problem of uncommon names. This handle is my actual legal name, a decision I made years ago that I frequently think of as both profoundly liberating and incredibly stupid.
The name "Jacques" is quite uncommon in the USA and the Anglosphere generally. I'm aware of this because my name has been mispronounced and misspelled for my entire life. Even though it is a common western European name, I fully expect that I will be reported from time to time and occasionally removed.
At which point, what am I meant to do? Scan my passport?
> People who are interested in kink, for example, are highly represented on OkCupid because they can advertise it without worrying about being identified by co-workers, family members, fellow church-goers and whatnot; similarly they typically don't want to be stalked by strangers either.
If you upload pictures, you can be easily identified. If someone wants to stalk you, a reverse-image search is trivial to do. But even if we disagree on that point, you don't have to use your real name. So, again, what is the argument?
> If you upload pictures, you can be easily identified.
If it has your face, yes. Kink profiles don't, as a rule.
> If someone wants to stalk you, a reverse-image search is trivial to do.
Most folk use a photo specific to OkCupid for this reason.
> you don't have to use your real name
You have to use the one you'd prefer to be called by. I don't know about you, but that's the name my mother gave me. On top of which, it is already being "enforced" in a way that will pretty much guarantee that my actual name will be seen as an evasion of the policy.
If folk want to go by their name, the original policy allowed that. Or they could go to Bumble or Tinder or a billion other wannabe apps. What OkCupid allowed was choice to choose any name, even a dumb one, for any reason.
That they sneered and smarmed their way through the announcement just makes me angrier and less willing to take them seriously.
Edit 2: There are multiple screenshots of "first name" and "real name" text from the app and website which predate the alleged change to the text of the blogpost and FAQ: https://imgur.com/LaYdmba, https://imgur.com/aOIKjKR
Okcupid with real names is like facebook without any privacy controls. You can filter on cities, interests, languages, .. to search people. Most users have answered hundreds of personal questions and give away even more info within the essays. A lot of personal information.
You can't search people on Tinder or Bumble. There's also way less personal information on Tinder or Bumble. (I don't know Hinge.)
The subject of the email I got was “Heads up: we’re replacing usernames with real names”
With a big green button “Add my name”. I ignored it but I couldn’t use the website without changing my name. It clearly stated “Add your real name”.
If they're not enforcing it or planning to, why even do it? Ballerinacat69 will just say their name is ballerinacat69 and then what has anyone gained?
In the end they're going to get users reporting people or even harassing people for having "obvious" fake names (and many of those reports will be against trans people using the name they actually use).
So either they're going to have to do something about fake names or they've just established a cultural norm for their site that will be toxic for many of their users.
Or you could just assume people are being hysterical as your first default assumption I suppose.
You're making it seem like my default assumption is completely off-base, and yet I think that "harassing people for having 'obvious' fake names" is reaching so hard, my assumption is almost innocuous by comparison.
I mean, just think about it: why would people harass someone with a name of "xyz123" but not harass someone with a handle of "xyz123." The distinction is a non-distinction and, yes, people are being hysterical for no good reason.
Publications like The Verge (and Vox, and Kotaku, to name a few others) pander this kind of social hysteria as a means to get clicks, and by extension, ad revenue. I personally think it's disgusting.
They're getting mad because the change is mandatory (you can't not fill in a name) and their policy isn't clear (it doesn't say you don't have to put in your legal name.)
Also "first names" aren't unique, but usernames are. People have been using usernames on the site for years.
The author has absolutely no argument apart from a dubious anecdote by a reddit user. It also cleverly ignores every counter-example out there, e.g.: Tinder uses real names, Bumble uses real names, Hinge uses real names. I mean, by its own admission, the article is much ado about nothing: "Via email, a company spokesperson told The Verge that OKCupid won’t require legal names, but the shift is already unpopular with users."
What's the difference between a non-legal name and a web handle? That you can use underscores and numbers in the latter? Why are people getting mad, again?