Social Network Anonymity Hybrid

I've been reading a fair bit about the pros and cons of requiring users to employ their real names on social networking services. I won't bother to recap these comparisons here in any detail, but will instead outline my preferred compromise, which is that if a pseudonym is employed, the profile must make this clear. This allows those who aren't comfortable with unknown persons to filter based on the fact and avoids impersonation issues, while still allowing the benefits of anonymity to those who require it. Users who violate this policy could face appropriate disciplinary action in an easy to keep consistent manner. The issues surrounding the verification of one's true identity are no different than a system that mandates real names. It may be useful to distinguish between accounts that have been declared anonymous and those that are simply unverified as yet, perhaps with a reasonable deadline and possibly even levels of confirmation. Many variations are possible, but the fundamental idea is this: give users the information and features required in an easy to use, consistent manner so that they can decide for themselves how they feel about anonymity.

Update: a possible option of particular note is one where the user is required to verify their identity, but then are free to use any public name they desire. This eliminates the issues with multiple accounts and impersonation, but still allows anonymity.

Personal Image Ownership

No, this is not Liz Taylor.

With the recent demise of Patrick Swayze I was reminded of all the tabloid photographs of him during his fight with cancer and how angry they made me owing to their exploitative nature. Not that I really cared particularly about Mr. Swayze one way or the other, but it seemed an obvious line had been crossed. I think that people should have exclusive rights to their own image, providing they can be identified from it, or it is ascribed to them either directly or through context (to prevent identity being added to a photograph by other means). This would mean that you would be effectively anonymous photographically, unless you'd signed a release. For specific events, people could sign blanket releases and those shot in large crowds can simply have their features blurred slightly to prevent identification. The technology to do this is now extremely simple and should pose no significant restriction. Additionally, it may be desirable to limit the potential practice of having an unidentifiable photograph to which an identity is implied even though it is not in fact of the subject in question. An example of this would be an embarrassing photo of a random person in which a face isn't visible, but put in the context of an article about someone specific. The implication would be that the picture is of them, even though it is not. If the photo were easily identifiable as not being the individual in question, that would of course be acceptable.