For me, it was that the Internet never forgets and that you should never enter your real name. In my opinion, both of these rules are now completely ignored.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Social media killed online aliases and I have a hard time deciding if we’re all worse for it.

    Instinctively I still stick by that, though, as you can tell by my anonymous profile with no bio, but when I volunteer any amount of personal info these days people are often confused that I’m not sharing openly who I am or where I’m from. Every time someone does that it weirds me out because in the 90s telling (and asking) people those things would have been such a suspicious, sketchy move.

    • kablammy@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      in the 90s telling (and asking) people those things would have been such a suspicious, sketchy move.

      a/s/l?

    • Che Banana@beehaw.org
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      2 months ago

      Facebook tried that shit with me. Ban until I sent verification of my ID so I sent a paystub photoshopped (badly) with my alias, it was accepted and it’s still there even though I left FB years ago.

      • zerofk@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        I wish they would ban me. I haven’t logged in in over 15 years and even block several of their servers, and yet I still get mails that someone in there commented on something.

        • Che Banana@beehaw.org
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          2 months ago

          Oh I get zero notifications, but the only real reason I haven’t taken it down is that my posts from IG are cross posted there for the business, which I have to have to advertise our specials because of the boomers that use it daily.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Shit, I provide every single service with randomly generated data, unless legally required. Just doing my part to pollute the training day.

    • CharlesReed@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      Every time someone does that it weirds me out because in the 90s telling (and asking) people those things would have been such a suspicious, sketchy move.

      And now it’s come 180 in that some see it as a red flag if you don’t give up that information. I had someone on a different social media site accuse me of being a bot because I wouldn’t give up the specific town I’m from. I’ve seen it happen to others too. It is both fascinating and insane how viewpoints have changed regarding identifying yourself online.

    • Kuma@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Not only telling your real name, you weren’t supposed to tell your real birthday, give away your phone number or where you lived, even just saying the city was a bit much. So filling in those things like on Facebook or LinkedIn feels very wrong but it would be even more wrong to have fake info there. So my new rule is, only add ppl I know irl to places I use my real info and everything else can I add anyone to.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        2 months ago

        Ugh, the world of “branded people.” Everything is like “Add a picture of yourself, or you won’t seem trustworthy!”

        Yeesh. Some artists and such can make it using a pseudonym, but it’s rare in more professional circles…but now if you hope to be taken seriously as a professional, you’re expected to put your real super genuine self out there.

        …and we get news stories of people being harassed and doxxed literally to death. It’s crazy…

        • Kuma@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Yes that picture thing happened multiple times at my old job. They kept pestering me about give them a pic to add to the “about us” page and I had to use my face in all channels (jira, slack email and so on) because “otherwise I can’t tell who is who”… my current job handled that much better, they asked for a pic (if I wanted to) to be used as reference for an artist (always the same) to make an avatar and that is now the avatar my coworkers and I use in presentations, systems, emails, webpages anything, we never use real image of our coworkers unless the person wish for it.