German privacy group pushes Facebook to allow the use of pseudonyms

By AJ Dellinger July 29, 2015

thai man imprisoned for insulting monarchy facebook gets taste of its own medicine forced to hand over user information cour — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Facebook’s controversial policy that requires users to list their real name came under fire by a German privacy watchdog group. The group, the Hamburg Data Protection Authority, serves as an overseer of Facebook in Germany. On Tuesday, the organization deemed that Facebook cannot change a user’s chosen name to their real name, nor can the social network request official identification.

The policy was brought to the attention of the watchdog group after a Facebook user complained the site had blocked her account because she use a pseudonym. Facebook also requested a copy of her ID and swapped her username back to her real name. She made the changes in order to avoid being contacted for unsolicited business matters.

A Facebook spokesperson told Reuters, “The use of authentic names on Facebook protects people’s privacy and safety by ensuring people know who they’re sharing and connecting with.” The Hamburg Data Protection Authority believes the opposite, that forcing the use of real names violates the privacy of the user.

Germany is not the first European country to take issue with Facebook policies. A privacy group in Belgium recently took Facebook to court over the site’s location tracking of users. Authorities are working with partners in Spain, the Netherlands, and France to investigate Facebook’s privacy policy.

Ireland has taken a contrarian stance on the issue, deeming the reasoning for the real name policy — including child safety and prevention of online harassment — to be justified. The decision was handed down by an Irish watchdog group in 2011 after performing an audit on the policy.

Facebook maintains its European headquarters in Ireland and has stated that its policies need only abide by Irish law though they apply to users across Europe. The real name policy does not violate any laws in Ireland and Facebook believes it is not in the jurisdiction of any other European authorities.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributor

AJ Dellinger is a freelance reporter from Madison, Wisconsin with an affinity for all things tech. He has been published by…

Social Media

Facebook removes network of Russian misinformation groups

The Facebook home page on a screen.

Facebook announced that it has taken down three networks of pages and groups that demonstrated “coordinated inauthentic behavior," including one from Russia that was aimed at recruiting journalists to write for news pages that looked left-leaning, according to the Washington Post.

In total, Facebook said it took down 521 Facebook accounts, 147 pages, and 78 groups associated with these networks, but the Russian network was actually the smallest of the three rings that were busted. The three groups generated fake views and engagements that intentionally sought to mislead people, according to Facebook.

News

Targeted Facebook ads are about to lose a big audience: iPhone owners

facebook hacked

The face of Facebook advertising is about to change. With Apple’s rollout of iOS14 in September, Facebook issued a short statement to advertisers letting them know that their formerly hypertargeted ads, as facilitated by the Facebook Audience Network platform, might not work anymore. As first reported by Axios, this will likely have a huge impact on the advertising industry, of which Facebook plays a huge part in the U.S. But while this may be bad for the advertisers and for Facebook, this could be a win for users’ privacy

The next update of the iPhone software will feature a new function wherein users have to opt in to being tracked by advertisers. This will require apps to ask iPhone users’ permission to collect and share their data. This puts advertisers who rely heavily on Facebook’s platform in a pickle, as Facebook’s ads are notorious for being extremely specific to the user.
Accomplishing what the boycott couldn’t
July 31 saw the end of a massive, much-ballyhooed advertising boycott — with more than 1,000 brands participating — that was supposed to bring Facebook to its financial knees in the name of social justice. Instead, the boycott barely dented the platform’s revenue.

Web

Facebook’s new privacy tool convinced me to delete my account

facebook hacked

For years, my Facebook account has practically sat dormant. It's a nostalgic relic of the past that lets me occasionally walk down the memory lane of my life’s first two decades. But it's also a weak link in my digital privacy. I've known for years that Facebook is constantly watching, studying me as I wander through the web. Still, I never gathered up the courage to delete my account and burn it to the ground once and for all. Until last week, that is.
The final nail in the Facebook coffin
A few days ago, I found myself staring wide-eyed at the rundown of all the nearly 1,400 websites and apps that have gathered data on me and shared it with Facebook. I was looking at the Off-Facebook Activity tool, one of the recent additions to Facebook’s suite of security options for users that I had fortuitously stumbled upon. Moments later, my cursor was hovering over the Delete Account button.

Facebook knows a lot about you. After the countless controversies and privacy “bugs,” you probably already knew that. What most people are not familiar with, however, is the vast network of third parties that has enabled Facebook to invade nearly every app you use, and become the data superpower it is today.