Author Topic: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page  (Read 2011 times)

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Online El Barto

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Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« on: December 19, 2016, 09:10:29 AM »
Perhaps the youngsters here can help out an old fart. I want to set up a facebook page with no personally identifying information, but still be recognizable to close friends and family. Will it default to the name I initially set up my account with (the mighty Dang Ling Wang  :tup) or will it ask me down the road for the name that people will see. That one I'd like to setup with my first name or a recognizable combination of initials. I doubt much of my family would accept a request from good Mr. Wang.

Any other tips for staying recognizable but off the grid?
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2016, 09:18:52 AM »
Perhaps the youngsters here can help out an old fart. I want to set up a facebook page with no personally identifying information, but still be recognizable to close friends and family. Will it default to the name I initially set up my account with (the mighty Dang Ling Wang  :tup) or will it ask me down the road for the name that people will see. That one I'd like to setup with my first name or a recognizable combination of initials. I doubt much of my family would accept a request from good Mr. Wang.

Any other tips for staying recognizable but off the grid?

If you made a Facebook page with your default profile picture being your DTF Avatar, I'd know who you were. Or you could make your default picture the album cover of The Joshua Tree. As far as the name goes, I think you can pick anything. A guy I graduated school with has his name as "Cost Vander Joint", whatever the hell that means. His real name is Joseph.

Offline Train of Naught

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2016, 09:24:56 AM »
If you are only concerned about keeping personally identifying information from the public, you should be fine. However, sometimes it almost creeps me out how much stuff Facebook tracks down from your daily routine. Sooner or later, you'll get advertisements and sponsored content based on that one e-mail you sent to a co-worker, or a text message you sent to your significant other about how much you love horses or whatever.

However, if it's just the name thing, you should be fine. I know plenty of people that do not wish to use their real name and it works just fine. You can enter any name you want upon creating the account (as long as it's not inappropriate or anything) and it'll use that.
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Offline millahh

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2016, 09:26:24 AM »
As we discussed previously, if you set it up as "El Jesus" (or possibly L. Jesus?), I'd think everyone would know it was you without any further information...
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Online El Barto

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2016, 09:31:23 AM »
If you made a Facebook page with your default profile picture being your DTF Avatar, I'd know who you were. Or you could make your default picture the album cover of The Joshua Tree. As far as the name goes, I think you can pick anything. A guy I graduated school with has his name as "Cost Vander Joint", whatever the hell that means. His real name is Joseph.
That's actually a pretty good idea, except that I really hate U2. Might do a variation on that, though.

You can enter any name you want upon creating the account (as long as it's not inappropriate or anything) and it'll use that.
That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out. I want to set it up with a bogus name, but only have it display a nick, which would most likely be some variation containing my first name.

As for FB snooping on me, that's why I'm keeping real info off, and I'm setting this up entirely so I can see what my F&F are up to. I have no intention of sharing same. Zuckerberg is never going to find out when I'm on the can or how many cheeseburgers I eat in a given month.
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Offline Sir GuitarCozmo

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2016, 09:33:24 AM »
Mine has been Cozmo Hagar for as long as I can remember, but in real life, TONS of people call me Cozmo, so it's fitting.

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2016, 09:35:37 AM »
If you made a Facebook page with your default profile picture being your DTF Avatar, I'd know who you were. Or you could make your default picture the album cover of The Joshua Tree. As far as the name goes, I think you can pick anything. A guy I graduated school with has his name as "Cost Vander Joint", whatever the hell that means. His real name is Joseph.
That's actually a pretty good idea, except that I really hate U2. Might do a variation on that, though.

You can enter any name you want upon creating the account (as long as it's not inappropriate or anything) and it'll use that.
That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out. I want to set it up with a bogus name, but only have it display a nick, which would most likely be some variation containing my first name.

As for FB snooping on me, that's why I'm keeping real info off, and I'm setting this up entirely so I can see what my F&F are up to. I have no intention of sharing same. Zuckerberg is never going to find out when I'm on the can or how many cheeseburgers I eat in a given month.

In all seriousness though, if your FB account is linked to an email address that's tied to anything else, they'll figure it out. I get ads on FB based of my activity elsewhere on a regular basis because of the common email address. Your best bet is making a throwaway email account specifically for this. Make some completely bogus gmail account and use it this one time only.

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2016, 09:43:12 AM »
If you made a Facebook page with your default profile picture being your DTF Avatar, I'd know who you were. Or you could make your default picture the album cover of The Joshua Tree. As far as the name goes, I think you can pick anything. A guy I graduated school with has his name as "Cost Vander Joint", whatever the hell that means. His real name is Joseph.
That's actually a pretty good idea, except that I really hate U2. Might do a variation on that, though.

You can enter any name you want upon creating the account (as long as it's not inappropriate or anything) and it'll use that.
That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out. I want to set it up with a bogus name, but only have it display a nick, which would most likely be some variation containing my first name.

As for FB snooping on me, that's why I'm keeping real info off, and I'm setting this up entirely so I can see what my F&F are up to. I have no intention of sharing same. Zuckerberg is never going to find out when I'm on the can or how many cheeseburgers I eat in a given month.

In all seriousness though, if your FB account is linked to an email address that's tied to anything else, they'll figure it out. I get ads on FB based of my activity elsewhere on a regular basis because of the common email address. Your best bet is making a throwaway email account specifically for this. Make some completely bogus gmail account and use it this one time only.Yup. Dang Wang has his own gmail account set up with a burner number. And that's why I don't want to just experiment with this. I don't want to have to set up another one if this profile doesn't work the way I'd like it to.
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2016, 02:31:32 PM »
If you made a Facebook page with your default profile picture being your DTF Avatar, I'd know who you were. Or you could make your default picture the album cover of The Joshua Tree. As far as the name goes, I think you can pick anything. A guy I graduated school with has his name as "Cost Vander Joint", whatever the hell that means. His real name is Joseph.
That's actually a pretty good idea, except that I really hate U2. Might do a variation on that, though.

You can enter any name you want upon creating the account (as long as it's not inappropriate or anything) and it'll use that.
That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out. I want to set it up with a bogus name, but only have it display a nick, which would most likely be some variation containing my first name.

As for FB snooping on me, that's why I'm keeping real info off, and I'm setting this up entirely so I can see what my F&F are up to. I have no intention of sharing same. Zuckerberg is never going to find out when I'm on the can or how many cheeseburgers I eat in a given month.

In all seriousness though, if your FB account is linked to an email address that's tied to anything else, they'll figure it out. I get ads on FB based of my activity elsewhere on a regular basis because of the common email address. Your best bet is making a throwaway email account specifically for this. Make some completely bogus gmail account and use it this one time only.Yup. Dang Wang has his own gmail account set up with a burner number. And that's why I don't want to just experiment with this. I don't want to have to set up another one if this profile doesn't work the way I'd like it to.

In all seriousness, it is very hard to not give away personal information on Facebook.  You can provide all the fake info you'd like, but facebook will still get to know you by how you use it and I'd guess they'd be able to tell who you are as well over time of using it (I don't believe they actively do this, but just saying the amount of data gathered on you could probably figure this out).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3rS7I6Xyz8 - this is from Adam Ruins everything, this 2 minute clip breifly discusses facebook advertising.  Being that I work for a top online advertiser, I can say this is true and the amount of data collected to build a profile on your is staggering and it doesn't come just from facebook either.   

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #9 on: December 19, 2016, 03:10:53 PM »
Getting to know me and getting to know Mr. J. Diego Garcia Perez are two very different things. My stance is that people can gather all the demographics and analytics they want as long as it's not linked to me. I can't prevent Facebook and Google from cross-referencing my IPs, should they really want to, but I doubt they do and everything else is just generic information. They get a city, a first name and part of my birthday. Finding anything more would be an inefficient use of their time.

And this whole experiment has been fascinating. They sure do make anonymity a pain in the ass. Seems you can only append a nickname to your regular name, rather than replace it or even hide it. For the life of me I can't figure out why people want so much of their real data out in the open like that. In my case I used a fake last name and then went in a deleted that, so I only show up as my first name. Fair compromise, as far as I'm concerned.
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #10 on: December 19, 2016, 03:35:33 PM »
Getting to know me and getting to know Mr. J. Diego Garcia Perez are two very different things. My stance is that people can gather all the demographics and analytics they want as long as it's not linked to me. I can't prevent Facebook and Google from cross-referencing my IPs, should they really want to, but I doubt they do and everything else is just generic information. They get a city, a first name and part of my birthday. Finding anything more would be an inefficient use of their time.

Well yea, they aren't trying to cross reference the data to figure out who exactly you are, just pointing out that it can be done with the data gathered and at that point, what's the point then of trying to be unknown while still being known (aka I'm sure the people you friend know who you really are even if nothing on your facebook tells me who you actually are).  Also, the data gathered on you will come from more than facebook as well.  There is already a profile of you just for being on the web. For example, I have been getting facebook ads for something I bought on amazon earlier today.  Facebook is showing those ads even though I did not like or link from anything on facebook to make that purchase.  It's all part of my online identification.  Which is just a number (not a name) but yes included in that number will list lots of personal things like your location, gender, age, what kind of device you are using, websites you visited, things you have searched.  So what's the point in hiding your name?  Just so joe shmoe can't search for you on facebook?  Which is fine, that's why many teachers use different names on facebook, so their students can't find them, but people can be found other ways (like posting a picture and then you can google search a picture if you had it too and find the link to someone's facebook).  It's ridiculously creepy about how much info can be gathered about you, and this is why things like facebook and most of the internet are "free" because you pay with your privacy.   

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2016, 03:50:01 PM »
Getting to know me and getting to know Mr. J. Diego Garcia Perez are two very different things. My stance is that people can gather all the demographics and analytics they want as long as it's not linked to me. I can't prevent Facebook and Google from cross-referencing my IPs, should they really want to, but I doubt they do and everything else is just generic information. They get a city, a first name and part of my birthday. Finding anything more would be an inefficient use of their time.

Well yea, they aren't trying to cross reference the data to figure out who exactly you are, just pointing out that it can be done with the data gathered and at that point, what's the point then of trying to be unknown while still being known (aka I'm sure the people you friend know who you really are even if nothing on your facebook tells me who you actually are).  Also, the data gathered on you will come from more than facebook as well.  There is already a profile of you just for being on the web. For example, I have been getting facebook ads for something I bought on amazon earlier today.  Facebook is showing those ads even though I did not like or link from anything on facebook to make that purchase.  It's all part of my online identification.  Which is just a number (not a name) but yes included in that number will list lots of personal things like your location, gender, age, what kind of device you are using, websites you visited, things you have searched.  So what's the point in hiding your name?  Just so joe shmoe can't search for you on facebook?  Which is fine, that's why many teachers use different names on facebook, so their students can't find them, but people can be found other ways (like posting a picture and then you can google search a picture if you had it too and find the link to someone's facebook).  It's ridiculously creepy about how much info can be gathered about you, and this is why things like facebook and most of the internet are "free" because you pay with your privacy.
While this is true, there are certainly ways to invalidate much of that data. My google account for my work/home are distinct from my android cell. The yahoo email I use isn't used for anything identifiable. They all have fictitious information. I don't get targeted ads, aside from some mailing lists in a junk email account, and if you search for me online you're not going to find much, aside from some past addresses and long dead phone numbers. Again, somebody with the interest could cross-reference enough stuff to track me down, but unless I decide to blow something up that's very likely not going to happen.
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2016, 04:12:31 PM »
I'm a Facebook whore and use it as a tool to mock myself and my friends.  I tend not to have anything important on there that I don't control. There are levels that you can set that everybody can see, friends only can see or a middle level.  It all depends on what you want.
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #13 on: December 19, 2016, 08:43:40 PM »
Perhaps the youngsters here can help out an old fart. I want to set up a facebook page with no personally identifying information, but still be recognizable to close friends and family. Will it default to the name I initially set up my account with (the mighty Dang Ling Wang  :tup) or will it ask me down the road for the name that people will see. That one I'd like to setup with my first name or a recognizable combination of initials. I doubt much of my family would accept a request from good Mr. Wang.

Any other tips for staying recognizable but off the grid?

Do you mean an actual Facebook page? Or do you mean a regular Facebook profile? They are two different things. As far as I know, to setup a Facebook page, you need to have a regular Facebook account linked to it.

Offline Cool Chris

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #14 on: December 20, 2016, 12:07:44 AM »
...but still be recognizable to close friends and family.

EB has close friends?  :D
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #15 on: January 12, 2017, 01:33:32 PM »
So I've learned a fair amount during this little experiment of mine (including apparently the fact that I do actually have close friends).

For one thing, Facebook really sucks. It's full of really stupid people, and while I trust my friends to not be asshats, I can't trust them to not have asshat friends.

The whole thing is designed to be as cumbersome as possible with regards to anything that doesn't relate to data-mining. Things that should be incredibly simple are made annoying as hell. Only seeing what your friends post, as opposed to what they liked or commented on, should be a tick away. Instead it has to be done by segregating people into groups, thus expanding the data gained as it pertains to relationships.

People are far too generous with the info they put out for the world to see. This isn't really a surprise to me, but I wasn't expecting it to be confirmed so readily. Took me five minutes to track down an ex-girlfriend, despite having no idea what her last name is, and learned more than I really needed to know.

Looking up old acquaintances actually is interesting. An old friend I used to work with, who was the absolute cheatinest person I've ever known, is happily married to the same woman twenty years later and raising cute kids off in the Styx. Sometimes it really does take people into their thirties to grow up.

The combination of the above two should be self-limiting, but it's not. It's fun to look up old friends, and I suspect the ex-girlfriend I referred to had probably looked for me once or twice, so everybody has to be aware of how they're reflected on Facebook. Yet they still open themselves up for all the world to see.

As pointed out and also no surprise, it does a pretty good job at tacking your every move. Every page I went to had my little Oriental dude avatar at the bottom. However, this is the easiest thing to get around. I always keep a separate, private browser window open and when it's running inside of that one my regular browsing is disconnected. Aside from ditching the shit altogether, that's the one recommendation I'd make to everybody. Keep the functionality but lose the creepiness by running it in a private browser window. I've taken to using that for my Amazon shopping, as well. 

The security is surprisingly bad. My ham-handed fumbling around to create my anonymous, mononymous account should have been quashed quite a few times. I suspect even this forum would have prevented me from doing what I did with Facebook.

Didn't realize it at first, as I was only looking for some added privacy, but having a mononumous facebook account looks pretentious as all fuck.

Suffice it to say, the grand experiment will be coming to an end pretty soon.
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #16 on: January 12, 2017, 01:45:57 PM »
Nice job, Cher. 

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2017, 02:00:55 PM »
Actually, I'm kind of a big Teller fan.
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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #18 on: January 12, 2017, 02:18:17 PM »
Well that one post pretty much sums up facebook.

I'd say get out before you get too far in.  I can't see myself dropping facebook because it's become so intertwined with my real life social life (facebook chat, facebook events), you need facebook to have tinder, other websites use it for login, I'm VERY much addicted to scrolling through my facebook feed for entertainment value, and so on, but there is part of me that wishes I had never signed up for the negatives you mention, but too late now.

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #19 on: January 12, 2017, 03:43:51 PM »
Facebook has never really been amazing in my mind, but it's gotten really bad in the past two years or so. They are trying so hard to be the "every-site" with a dedicated videos section and even buy/sell functionality like ebay. My feed is just full of people reposting/sharing jokes, viral videos, and other useless crap that I don't want to see. No one really uses it to talk about themselves anymore, which believe it or not, I was actually interested in once upon a time.

It's gone through this weird evolution where it started as a college site where you could find available people and see what your classmates are up to. Then it got more widespread. It was fun connect with people you had only met in person like once, write things on each others' walls, and keep in touch with people that have moved away. Then it got so big, everyone and their mother was on there. It got the point where it was almost socially required to add everyone you know from your friends to even family you don't even like. And now it's not even about social networking. It's all about sharing viral videos and unfunny memes ("tag a friend just because! And share! xD") and companies trying to make their way into the internet limelight. Facebook's algorithms to determine what content to show is a big circle jerk of what's already popular. It's awful.

/facebook rant

tl;dr: Facebook is bad.

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #20 on: January 12, 2017, 05:29:51 PM »
Spot on rant.

You are also right about facebook's motive. They want to be a one stop shop for the internet. They want to be your homepage and for all your Internet exploring to start through their site. It's scarey when you think about it.

I'm proud to admit that I stick to the origins of Facebook and leave my wall to being about myself and my life (and almost exclusively positivity), no memes or articles or bs and definitely no politics. Just me and how I live my life.

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2017, 06:08:45 AM »
It's funny, because when el Barto posted this I sort of thought "hmm, I'm going to watch this; maybe I'll do something similar!"   I've got kids on there and a wife, and lord knows the pool of ex-girlfriends might be fertile... then I read the outcome and I think "I'm good!".   

In my feeble, little world, in 50 years "social media" is going to be like "euthanasia" or "Betamax"; a name from the past that you're going to have to look up in Wikipedia.   :)

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Re: Setting up a semi-anonymous facebook page
« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2017, 06:31:15 AM »
It's actually quite easy to setup an anonymous Facebook page. You just need to know what to use.