Facebook Starts Their Assault On Faux Names

We all have that one friend on Facebook that either uses a fake name or has the obnoxiously long fake last name. Yes, it can get pretty annoying, but are you willing to do something about it? Well, now you can. According to the Next Web, Facebook has launched a new campaign to catch pseudonym users in the act. The Next Web was sent the image above via @chapeaudefee showing a popup that asks the user whether or not his or her friend is using a fake name on Facebook.

After the Next Web reported on this issue, Facebook responded to them by releasing this statement:

We are always looking to gauge how people use Facebook and represent themselves to better design our product and systems. We are showing people information that their friends have made available to them and we indicate to the person taking the survey that their response will be anonymous to ensure them that we are not sharing their data with anyone and only looking to understand the results in an aggregate sense. Additionally, it is important to understand that we will not be using this data for enforcement actions.

While I like that Facebook is going the extra mile to make their network as clean and as legitimate as possible, something creeps me out about this. If some people really wants to hide their identity while connecting with friends and family, I say let them. They aren’t hurting anyone by going under a fake name; however, it could hurt Facebook’s ad service.

Please stop it with the fake middle names, guys and gals.

Source: The Next Web

Andrew is a geek, Apple enthusiast, blogger and coffee lover from Chicago.