Since it’s the big hype, and that I already have a real life Facebook account (no, don’t ask!), I thought it would be a fun thing to make a Facebook account for my avatar. I know numerous Secondlifers already having an account, registered under their avatar’s names, and everything is good for them. My GF Nadine have an account and she wanted me to join so we could loose more time on teh internetz.

Well I did the stupid mistake of misstating the birth date. Seeing the email address I used was blocked, I had the honesty of appealing of the block but providing all true informations, apart of course my RL name. Remember Facebook displays the name as is, no alias allowed and that every one on your friend list see your name as provided.

Since from what I understand Facebook does not protect anonymity at all, like Myspace and Flickr allows, I thought it would be important to warn the SLitizens about that important fact.

So, here is the bottom line rules about Facebook. From the Facebook Terms and Conditions you CANNOT:

• register for more than one User account, register for a User account on behalf of an individual other than yourself, or register for a User account on behalf of any group or entity;
• impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity;

Of course if you already have a RL Facebook account, and create an account for your avatar, you are in blatant violation of the Facebook terms and services.

Also there’s a few points from “Jonas”, Customer Rep at Facebook. Please note the irony, Jonas actually use a nickname, I am pretty sure that Jonas is not his full legal name, hence protecting his RL anonymity.

• Fake names (or accounts) are a violation of our Terms of Use.
• Facebook requires users to provide their full first and last names
  (i.e. no initials).
• Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited.
• Nicknames are only permitted if they are a variation of your first or last name.
• Also, nicknames cannot be used in replacement of your first or last name.
• The accepted format is as follows: FirstName ‘Nickname’ LastName.

So well if we are fake people, again Second Life citizens are also Second Life citizens. I wish Facebook does what Flickr did, accept us as real citizens with real Second identities. We have a lifeline, reputations, and do valuable things for our community. It may sound pathetic (but I’m sure you will understand what I mean) but often our Second Lifes becomes as important to us as our other life.
Let me remind you of the Flickr case. SL Flickerites were considered as second class users, and numerous account NIPSA’ed because our 3D art was not considered photography. Flickr came to it’s senses adding a filtering system that allowed SL art to finally be showed on the main Flickr streams and search, if the user wanted to see the 3D art/imagery.

I strongly think the SL community should pressure Facebook into implementing such filtering system, why not adding an Anonymous filter, disabled by default if they want, that would allow us avatars to search for each other without disrupting the real people in their real lives. Their policy about duplicate account should also be modified to include 2 accounts per user, one nicknamed anonymous account, and one RL account.

With over 1,5 million REGULAR users on SecondLife (past 2 months stats), it is their business choice to do. Ignore that market and keep being the fratboy hangout, or expand to SecondLifers and expand their horizons.

Of course, I remind you that if you want to remain anonymous in SL, you should not use Facebook. Their only privacy protection regarding this is to limit who can search your account. All the people on your friendlist will be able to see your real name, rendering the use of Avatar names in Secondlife completely useless.

Also if you have a “fake” Facebook account, just be warned, they will delete it or suspend it if they suspect that your not using your RL name.

Facebook head honchos surely sleeps at night despite real life harassment, stalking, theft of identity and so on. But they must acknowledge why us SLitizens chose to protect ourselves.

So in conclusion, if you want to meet other nice SL fellows, don’t use Facebook. There are other less nice but functionnal alternatives, like Flickr, Orkut, SLprofiles.com, even Myspace, Youtube, Twitter, and so many others.