Your Lemmy/Reddit/Fetlife/etc profile is tied to your real name and browsable. How screwed are you?

My username is most of my real name already. All of my friends and family know this. I even make comments all the time about stuff I found on Reddit/Lemmy/Discord/etc. No one cares. Not a single person has attempted to look me up; at least no one who has admitted it.

I try to be true to myself online. It's easy to hide behind a username, and eventually you start thinking you're invincible; that no one will figure out who you are. And you start saying things that might hurt you or ones you love if it ever got out.

I choose to avoid that altogether and just be myself online. Keeping a username that can be tied back to myself keeps me in check and ensures I only say or do things online that people who know me in real life would respect. It helps me to be a better person, even with the anonymity that the Internet may bring.

I used to believe in this (and to a degree still do), but the idea of increasing the attack surface of unreasonable people (who seem to have become increasingly common in the last 10 years) who will do insane things like SWAT you, or doxx your personal details (like home address), or even just follow you around online to harass you has made me have second thoughts about the tradeoffs involved in this approach 🫠
- Plus, you gotta be white, male, straight and cis to avoid harassment just for being who you are online. I am none of those things, so no thank you to using a traceable identity online.
This is the way. And same here. I don't use the mask of pseudo-anonymity to be a jackass. Anyone I know who discovers my online accounts will find I interact online and IRL exactly the same way.
- This is the way. And same here. I don't use the mask of pseudo-anonymity to be a jackass. Anyone I know who discovers my online accounts will find I interact online and IRL exactly the same way.
  One can use 'pseudo-anonimity' without being a jackass, we all better not forget that.
  I mean, the issue with someone being a jackass is not their willingness to (try to) be anonymous, it's them being a jackass.
  Us forgetting that is akin to us allowing those people telling us that we should all let go of any notion of privacy and freedom of speech because 'think of the children'. Freedom and privacy is the wrong issue, and their suppression is an even wronger solution to what's the real problem.
  Disclaimer: I use a pseudonym (the same one everywhere, even on my personal website), if you want to find any ‘jackass’ content be my guest.

I'm good. Me online and irl is pretty much the same.

Not much. I've made it a rule not to say anything on the internet that I'd be ashamed to say IRL. Other posters have recognised me from real life a couple of times and it's been no big deal.

I was once part of a community for making very crass jokes about sensitive topics, but given that the entrance is plastered with warnings about what you're going to find inside, I hope people would take it in its proper context.

Not very :3

Meh, I don't say anything online I wouldn't say to your face, so the folks that know me would just be "Ya, that tracks."

Might wind up on a few more government lists though.

Oh well. Winter is coming.

Not even the tiniest bit, lol. I stand by everything I said here (and wouldn't mind being corrected, ofc) and my friends and family know me well enough to see I'm actually trying to be cordial to y'all! Oh, and my wife 'stalks' me on Lemmy already. 😅

Not. I'm pretty much the same irl and online. Anyone who knows me could probably figure out who I am based on my posts (no need to wait for a doxing!). 🤷

I've already been completely screwed before Lemmy. At this point, all that could happen is me getting unscrewed.

I'm in the US right now, wouldn't be fun to get deanonymized.

Edit: Note to Mods: this is about legal issues and civil rights infringement, so its not really "political", but I've hidden it in a spoiler tag so people don't have to read it if they don't want to.

OP, is there something you're hiding?

Meh. I like the privacy but it wouldn't be that bad. I try not to be an asshole, and NSFW stuff, I figure it's private more because nobody wants to see that, than to protect me personally, I am not embarrassed to be human.

honestly I act the same in real life so not much

I've been using this handle longer than I've been using my real name. If you really want me you can find me.

With my family/peers - not at all.

With psychopaths in power and their supporters/goons - mildly to very.

Not at all.

Worst is that everyone knows I say fuck a lot.

Swear words are actually handled by a separate ancillary language center in the brain...
You're not being crude, you're just using your whole fucking brain
- Fuckin giga brain

A few of my coworkers might be judgy of my hobbies, but other than that, I don't do anything here on Lemmy that people I know would care about.

Everyone knows my nickname. It would be trivial to find my shit online.

Everyone already knows I'm like this

Oh no!

It would be annoying and some relationships that have withered might finally be snapped off and thrown away, but honestly while I appreciate the opportunity to say stuff online that I generally wouldn't want to be public knowledge, I say nothing that I couldn't handle being public knowledge. Probably a good rule of thumb, TBH.

Eh, I'm out with the important people, and I'm not one of the guys with a dick pic as my profile picture.

None of my nudes include face and I stand behind everything I’ve said, and I’m not that worried about it. I basically expect that one day some supercomputer will stitch it all together and create profiles for everyone based on our entire internet histories. And honestly, I don’t think it’s the quirky people with weird fetishes who’ll be screwed - it’s the mean, lying hypocrites who’ll have to stand behind the mountain of crap they’ve been spewing for decades.

I think that you should be worried more about that cup of coffee than any nudes
- This cup? I must say I'm relatively worry-free at the moment.

Which one? If all of them, I'm very screwed.

If it's only one of them, I might still be fine. I often have more than one account in each "domain" to maintain some semblance of compartmentalism. If I can't do that, I usually don't post much, if at all.

Very. Google is now summarizing everything it knows about you.

Example:
- I couldn't get a summary. I may suck at gemini-fu. Or I'm a nobody; and that's fine too.

Actually more people in my life know about my “intimate preferences” than they know my opinions on what I post online. Everyone wants to know my kinks, but nobody wants to listen to me whine about the government and corpos. smh my head

No one cares. Not a single person has attempted to look me up; at least no one who has admitted it.

Cant imagine anyone who knows me bothering to look through much. I have had accounts where it certainly would be a problem if they were just widely known to belong to me, but even then there's a couple irl people who know of them and haven't bothered trying to look through it.

if we were just talking about this account being widely known to belong to me, the biggest change would be getting outed as trans at work. Not exactly sure how well that would go.

I've used the same IP with an Android phone (even though it's largely neutered). I just assume that means Google knows, that My ISP knows. So the government knows. Palantir knows. Meta knows.

Zero percent screwed because I watch my mouth on my doxable account I'll delete in 6 months ;)

I don't think anyone would really care but me and mainly because I'm kinda shy.

Eh, not very. If you look hard enough you can already find out my real name from my Lemmy account.

The people who stalk me online and fantasize about killing me are the bigger issue than my family etc finding out (who already know about my lifestyle). However, it would be extremely hard for them to physically locate me regardless and even harder for them to actually harm me so whatever, I'm not cool with it but it probably wouldn't impact me

I would be chased off Lemmy.

Not at all

Not as much as you think. It is already pretty closely tied toy name.

While I've had to deal with a few recurring bullies who really don't like me, I doubt any of them would take it far enough to go after me IRL.

I hope.

Honestly, not that hard to figure out who I am. I know I put out enough info.

Not a problem.

Two things are true:

anything I write in here, I'll have a shouting match about on the B train at 1 in the morning on a Tuesday with a good friend who's smart and funny and, sadly, very wrong about the proper way to test a peacock for colour-blindness. IT'S COLOURED BUGS, CARL! COLOURED! BUGS! !GHAWD!!
randos who hear it will form negative opinions about me. And that's okay until - with my luck - they're my interviewer the next day.

I'm okay with those two things being true. One of my worst interviewers became my boss and a very excellent friend, so there's that.

Although I like anonymity Im one of those people that really does not have the energy for multiple faces. I don't think many people would be surprised who is behind Hue Manne.

The most damaging thing would be admitting how much time I spend here