Friday Fail Frenzy

Yes yes, it’s news so old now it’s practically fossilised, and we should move on to the Next Big Thing.

This RealID bullshit? This is the Big Thing. To be honest I have no idea if the idea of privacy is enshrined in any constitution anywhere in the world, but it should be (and I should be a damn sight better-educated on stuff like this). I’d like to have the right of free speech please and all attendant worship, grouping, unionising, whatever; I’d like the right to a fair trial if I ever get accused of something, especially if I actually did it; and I’d certainly like to have at least a teensy bit of the right to decide how and when my identity gets disseminated.

So here, have The List To Kill All Other List Of Links, Part II, The Return. It’s a great job of concatenation on dozens of posts this week, including “official” Blizzard people and news outlets and pundits and random passers-by like me, and it probably took forever to do, so thank you RealEye-Dee! (See whut I did thar?)

I haven’t even touched on the fact that because some big cheese who can barely shave thinks handles, personae and multiple identities are dishonest*, that’s suddenly how the world is? Oh Facebook, how I loathe thee. I’m seriously considering doing whatever I can to delete my account there and never going back. It’ll do me absolutely zero good, but I detest its founder’s attitude. It’s all very well to be open and lovely when you have eleventy jillion bucks to spend on security and making sure nobody steals your identity. It’s not so bloody lovely when some frothloony you happened to flip off in Goldshire decides he should visit you in person with a pickaxe.

As for the — I’m sorry, there’s no other word for it — deluded idiots who think this whole RealID thing is A Great Step Forward, I’ll tell you this. The way it’s done right now, it’s only a great step forward for frothloonies with pickaxes. There are already a ton of ways around it, so the poor schmucks who naively put in their real names thinking accountability is good are just opening themselves up to being harrassed by ReallyRealID JohnSmith123020@fake-email.com.

Besides, do you really believe it’s about forum accountability? Bollocks. Well okay, maybe it will work, by driving everyone with any sense away from the forums. It might even slow down the trolls, though unless the FORUM MODERATORS actively do anything about trolls they don’t really have anything to fear even now. Except — oh noes! Their posts might get given the thumbs-down! Yeah. That’ll really crush them and teach them to behave better.

/RealRolleyes

And no, I don’t delude myself that my information isn’t already out there to be found with a little digging. But as others have already pointed out, Googling my handle doesn’t find all that much. Google my handle and my real name and you suddenly get a lot more. Bit by bit you can build up the details.

I’m aware of that. I’m also aware of pretty much every time I let infobytes be disseminated about me, and I’m resigned to the fact that it’s going to happen. But most of the time I have a choice. I can choose not to sign up for whatever the service is. I can choose NOT to give people my name/number/email address.

So here’s my choice. As long as Activision have decided that they’re going to ActiBook all their games, I’m going to vote with my wallet and my feet. They won’t get my money and they won’t get my name. Most of all, because it’s absolutely not in the name of accountability, and I abhor that kind of “We’re doing it for you, honest, and us making several billion dollars out of it is totally incidental, I assure you!” hypocrisy. It’s about the money to be made out of social networks and jumping on the bandwagon when one has one of the largest potential customer pools in the world. I get it. I still hate it.

Edited — A Few Pictures Are Worth A Thousand Stylish Words — Penny Arcade are win, again.

*Thanks again to Lum Scott Jennings for that initial link. I had no idea Mr Z was so actively engaged in deciding for us how we should present ourselves to the rest of the world.

And thanks again to everyone who linked to me. Am flattered.